SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



BY 

EDWARD WILBERFORCE. 



To the great trading nation, to the great manufacturing nation, no progress which 
any portion of the human race can make in knowledge, in taste for the conveniences 
of life, or in the wealth by which those conveniences are produced, can be matter of 
indifference. — Macaulay — Speech on the Government oj India. 



LONDON 



Wm. H, ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W, 



LONDON ; 

LEWIS AND SON, PRINTERS, SWAN BUILDINGS, MOORG ATE STREET. 



TO THE 



THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED ; 

WITH THE TRUEST ADMIRATION FOR HIS INTELLECTUAL POWERS, 
AND WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARD, 



BY HIS NEPHEW. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. — Munich from the Outside .1 

II. — Manners and Customs . . . . . . =10 

III. — Koyalty 32 

IV. — " Two Kings of " ...... 52 

V— Public Buildings . 68 

VI— Picture Galleries ........ 86 

VII.— Kiinstler-Feste 113 

VIII.— Cornelius in Munich 128 

IX.— Kaulbach . .148 

X.— Munich Artistic 169 

XI.— Practical Munich 183 

XII. — Bavarian Kailways . . . . . . 198 

XIH.— The Koyal Library .214 

XIV.— The Theatre in Munich 229 

XV.— Concerts in Munich 244 

XVI.— Beer 257 

XVII.— Houses ,270 

XVIII.— Village Life in Bavaria ...... 287 

XIX. — Laws of Trade , 303 

XX. — Laws of Marriage .>...».. 323 
XXI. — Laws of Police ........ 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH, 



CHAPTER I. 

MUNICH FROM THE OUTSIDE. 

In forming an idea of a town, a great deal depends on 
the first impression. And the first impression depends 
almost entirely on circumstances over which you can 
have no control ; on the weather, on your own state of 
health, on your companions, or on your reception. 
Few cities present a more attractive front than Paris, 
to one entering on a fine afternoon, and seeing the 
Boulevards crowded with people ; but to drive in on a 
November day, with a thick yellow fog hanging down 
all the streets, would entirely destroy the best illusions. 
A certain gloom cannot fail to oppress the man coming 
on London from the East, and the universal verdict of 
foreigners shows that this first impression has never 
been overcome. Yet Alfieri was disgusted with his first 
sight of Paris, and enraptured with his first sight of 
England. I cannot, myself, hear the name of Paris 



2 SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 

mentioned without remembering the evening on which 
I entered, the whole range of the Boulevards glowing 
golden in the setting sun, the trees and the gaily- 
dressed passers, the colour and the glory. And it was 
long before the beauties of Venice could make me 
forget the winter night of my arrival, the Styx-like 
canaletti through which we glided, like spies coming to 
see the nakedness of the land ; the silent, ghost-like 
passers muffled in their cloaks, flitting noiselessly across 
the bridges, and through the mysterious lanes, down 
the mouths of which one peered with a half dread ; 
the blank hotel, with a rat walking down its steps, 
as if lord of the manor; the falling snow that hid St. 
Mark's. 

I think Munich is much favoured in the matter of 
first impressions. The majority of travellers come to 
it in summer, when it is certainly looking its best, and 
the judgments generally passed on it are very much 
influenced by its bright cheerful look from the outside. 
My first impression of Munich was decidedly favour- 
able, and to that I probably owe my residence. Be- 
sides being bright and cheerful, Munich has an advan- 
tage which cannot be over-estimated. All the well- 
known towns that you visit are associated with some 
idea. You have had a floating picture of them in your 
mind since childhood, without well knowing the details, 
and it is almost a necessary consequence of indefinite 
pictures that the reality should prove a disappointment. 
Mr. Dicey has expressed the inevitable disappointment 
that every one must feel in visiting Rome, and probably 
few but have formed a very different idea of V enice 



REAL verSUS IDEAL. 



3 



from that which is presented to them on their arrival. 
The more you have read and thought of a place before 
visiting it, the less chance of your vision being realised, 
and the advice given to travellers to make themselves 
thoroughly acquainted with the history of a country 
before going to it, is the surest guide to disappoint- 
ment. A lady who was presented to a great man whom 
she knew from his works, said that she was much dis- 
appointed in Mr. , but was surprised to find 

Mrs. — — so agreeable a woman. Was not this to say 

that she had expected great things from Mr. , but 

had not expected anything from his wife? Sir Joshua 
Reynolds' first feeling on seeing Raphael's pictures, 
Correggio's exclamation, " anch* io son pittore," mean- 
ing that he had formed an idea of the greatest painter 
far beyond anything that the greatest painter could 
achieve, are familiar examples of this law of the imagi- 
nation. Who has not been disappointed with the figure 
of our Lord in the Transfiguration ? asks Mr. Ruskin, 
endeavouring to make "that a reproach to Raphael 
which only proves that he was bound by the laws of 
our nature. For the meanest mind can conceive what 
the greatest mind cannot execute, and it is impossible 
for human work to come up to the standard that is set 
by the human mind. 

Now in this respect Munich is doubly fortunate. 
Few people have an exalted idea of it before their first 
visit, and they are agreeably surprised to light on so 
pleasant a place. Everything around looks so clean 
and fresh, all the houses are neat and gay from with- 
out, and the many public buildings, with their diversity 



4 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of form and colour, produce an agreeable sense of 
variety. Most show -towns are apt to be tiring from 
their sameness. After yon have seen one church or 
one palace, all the others are mere copies or reproduc- 
tions, and unless you are a student of architecture you 
do not value the gradations through which each style 
ascends to perfection. You would like to have every- 
thing together so as to compare different merits, and to 
feast your eye on different schools at the same moment. 
In Venice, with the grand works of Titian and Boni- 
fazio before you, you want the pictures of Raphael to 
check your enthusiasm, and would rather like to have 
the bell tower of Giotto placed beside the Campanile of 
St. Mark's, that you may know which is most worthy 
of admiration. And in this, too, Munich gives you 
just what you want. Instead of a puzzling national 
style, the considerate builder has collected copies of all 
the best known buildings of other countries. After 
seeing the Pitti palace copied in the front of the Royal 
Palace of Munich, you may go to the back, and find 
the inside of the court chapel built on the plan of 
St. Mark's. From the Loggie of Orcagna you can get 
in ten minutes to St. Paul's without the walls. " A 
poet himself of no mean pretensions/' King Ludwig 
has followed the precepts of Horace, and succeeds in 
answering the requirements of the Art of Poetry. 
" Modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis." But on this 
subject I cannot enlarge as eloquently as a French 
writer, whom I shall more than once have occasion to 
quote, and from whom I must translate this passage. 
" In Munich you are led from one surprise to another ; 



A FRENCH JUDGMENT. 



5 



each step gives you something new. No local conven- 
tion governs the architecture, but all the riches due to 
human genius, from the remotest times, are laid under 
contribution. It may be said that art lives there in its 
entirety, breathing in byzantine, gothic, Italian monu- 
ments; that science has form and colour. And the 
painting and statuary have this good fortune, that they 
have not been painfully produced, are not due to a 
school founded slowly by generations of artists, but 
have sprung up suddenly, admirable in boldness and 
beauty, at the call of a king, from the depths of thought, 
as a volcano sometimes opens a new crater, like that of 
Iceland, which, sacred fire in the midst of snows, is the 
image of the arts in Munich, Thus, no remains of 
mesquin ideas, no affectation, no compromise exacted 
tyranically by convention, necessity, recollection of this 
or that epoch, but as volcanoes vomit a primitive fire, 
so the productions of Munich are brilliant by the effect 
of an ardent and religious imitation of the ancients. 
Thus, the man who has not the leisure to visit Egypt, 
Greece, and the East, to run over the various countries 
of Europe, has but to come to this town, where all the 
wonders of the world have been gathered with the most 
praiseworthy perseverance, with a love for all that is 
great and beautiful, and in the happiest manner. Let 
the English too, after admiring Indian and Moresque 
constructions in their Crystal Palace, take the road to 
Munich, for not only has Munich its Crystal Palace, but 
is itself an enormous Palace of Industry, which is to 
Sydenham what Balbec is to a cottage, and the Coliseum 
of Rome to a Marionette Theatre." 



6 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



The reader who carefully follows M. le Baron Thie- 
bault's eloquence, and compares it with my humble 
arguments, will find many points in this passage which 
seem contradictory. But while I enter a slight protest 
against the art of Munich being considered free from 
convention and tradition, which are the guiding stars 
of its inspiration, from affectation and mesquin ideas, 
which only recur too often, and cannot fail to recur in 
works based on mere imitation of older models, I will 
leave the other matters to be answered by the course of 
this volume. As I shall have occasion to touch on 
most of the buildings, and on the claims of King Lud- 
wig to occupy the same eminence as Leo the Tenth and 
Lorenzo de' Medici, I need not; go out of my way to 
reply to M. Thiebault. I am at present occupied with 
the outward aspect of Munich alone, and desire to ex- 
plain the secret of the fascination it exercises. 

Few German cities have the same advantage in point 
of newness. Visitors to Munich generally come from 
some places remarkable as monuments of antiquity, 
from Nuremberg, Cologne, or the Belgian towns. And 
1 fancy that much as people are impressed with old 
thing s, as a rule they generally prefer what is new. 
The old is curious and instructive, but there is a gap 
between it and your habits which you do not care to 
leap, and you like to live in the present. I asked a 
travelling American what he thought of Venice, and 
his answer was, " Well, I can't say that I care very 
much for them old towns." The feeling is perfectly 
natural, and it is perhaps more often expressed in 
Munich than elsewhere. Besides the nineteenth cen- 



AN ENGLISH JUDGMENT. 



7 



tury is rather self-sufficient, and is proud of what has 
been produced during its own life. When we see 
Nuremberg, we say, " What splendid things these old 
fellows did ! " But in Munich it is, " one might really 
live here \" The effect is pleasant throughout; in the 
new part from the cheerfulness, in the old part from the 
contrast. " Munich/' says a recent traveller,* " sur- 
prised me more pleasantly than almost any city I ever 
remember to have entered. One had a sort of vague 
notion that the late king had a taste for the fine arts, 
and spent a good deal of his own, and his subjects^ 
money, in indulging the taste aforesaid in his capital. 
But one also knew that he had been tyrannized over by 
Lola Montes, and had made a countess of her, and had 
not succeeded in weathering 1848; so that, on the 
whole, we had no great belief in any good work from 
such a ruler. Munich gives one a higher notion of 
him ; as long as the city stands, he will have left his 
mark on it. On every side there are magnificent new 
streets, and public buildings and statues ; the railway 
terminus is the finest I have ever seen ; every church, 
from the cathedral downwards, is in beautiful order, and 
highly decorated; and it is not in the public buildings only 
that one meets with evidences of care and taste. The 
hotel in which we stayed, for instance, is built of brick, 
covered with some sort of cement, which gives it the ap- 
pearance of terra cotta, and is for colour the most won- 
derfully fascinating building material. The ceilings and 
cornices of the rooms are all carefully and tastefully 



Vacuus Viator, " Spectator," September 6th, 1862. 



8 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



painted and all about the town one sees frescoes and 
ornamentation of all kinds, which show that the people 
delight in seeing their city look bright and gay ; and 
every one admits that all this is due to the ex-king." 

Even here there are a few slight errors, and the writer 
has been tempted to wander off into a panegyric of 
King Ludwig, which is not entirely deserved. That 
the great improvements in Munich are due to King 
Ludwig must be admitted, but it is a question if the 
bright look of the town is owing to him. His own 
street, the Ludwig' s Strasse, is as nearly dismal as it can 
be under the brilliant sun of Munich, and with a pro- 
fusion of varied colour ; in winter it is dreary in the 
extreme. This is owing to the predominance of public 
buildings over private houses, the disproportionate 
breadth, the want of trees, the want of any place to 
which the street leads. Thus the number of walkers in 
the street is always small, and the windows not being 
enlivened by lookers out are dismal and empty. Almost 
all the new quarters of other German towns are lively ; 
Stuttgart, for instance, and Dresden, though they owe 
nothing to panegyrised monarchs, and are consequently 
unhonoured and unsung. One of the charms of the 
new parts of Munich, especially of that quarter in 
which the galleries are situated, is the green of trees, 
and the little gardens in front of the houses. The fringe 
of trees surrounding the Glyptothek, and spreading out 
like a fan towards the entrance into the town, has a 
very pleasing effect, enhancing the beauty of the build- 
ing. All down the Brienner Strasse are lilacs and 
laburnums, whose masses of flower in spring and chang- 



TREES AND SQUARES. 



9 



ing leaves in autumn, are as beautiful as their tint and 
refreshing shade in the summer. How much of this is 
owing to King Ludwig ? It is known that he has that 
strange prejudice against trees which causes the gloom of 
many Italian cities, that he will not admit into the 
Ludwig' s Strasse the only possible means of enlivening 
it, that a great ugly open place runs between the inner 
town and the new quarters, which cannot be laid out 
with pleasant alleys and bosquets till his death ; that 
when his son began to plant trees in the square before 
the palace, he came up to Munich, and had the work 
discontinued. And yet these very trees and alleys 
which are obnoxious to King Ludwig are the pleasantest 
feature in Munich, and weigh more in its favour with 
travellers than King Ludwig' s own achievements. 

Now that the new quarters of the town are rapidly 
being filled up, and large vacant spaces no longer exist 
as they once did between churches and galleries, the 
outward show is highly commendable. Houses which 
are allowed to spread in an open and healthy way, are 
apt to seem cheerful and airy, especially when they are 
set off with trees and garden plots, which add so much 
to the look of a town. Moreover, there is a more home- 
like air about them, being smaller and more compact 
than the many-storied houses of the inner city. Each 
house is separated from its neighbour, and stands a 
little apart from the rest, a little way back from the 
street. A succession of such houses cannot but be 
attractive, especially to wanderers from the dark streets 
of London. Moreover the profusion of external orna- 
ment gives a cheerful look to the new houses. There 

b 2 



10 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH e 



is something strangely picturesque in the aspect of 
Parisian houses, and the newest ones in Munich are 
built in outward imitation of Paris. Nor are the old 
houses behind-hand in this particular. The scrolls and 
embossing about the fronts of the houses in the Schran- 
nen Platz, might seem to have given the idea for the 
ornaments above the windows and below the roofs in 
the Maximilian's Strasse. Without the architectural 
interest of Nuremberg, or the grave effect of Augsburg, 
the old part of Munich is by no means destitute of the 
quaint attraction of the national style of Germany. 
It is a question if in modern times anything could be 
made out of this style, had the building of Munich 
been left to architects. But King Ludwig's introduc- 
tion of all the styles nnder the sun, and King Maxi- 
milian's imitation of Napoleon the Third, have given 
Munich a mongrel character, which places it out of the 
pale of architectural discussion. Like those American 
connoisseurs who prefer having their galleries full of 
Correggios and Leonardos, instead of founding a native 
school of painting, both the kings of Bavaria have put 
their own memories before the interests of national art. 

But though the character of the town is mongrel, no 
one denies its outward charm. And one very great 
addition to Munich is the English garden, which no 
visitor can fail to appreciate, and which is certainly un- 
rivalled in Europe. The flatness of the plain round 
Munich, and the want of pleasant walks, only make this 
promenade more necessary. The situation of the town 
is admitted to be faulty, and it is said that King Ludwig 
on his accession meditated removing the seat of govern- 



THE USE OF RIVERS. 



ment to Ratisbon. All towns which have a claim to 
picturesqueness need the society of a river, and make 
much of its neighbourhood. Without the quays along 
the Seine, without the Lung, Arno, Paris and Florence 
would lose much of their grace. The discussions that 
have taken place in London about embanking the 
Thames show that the English people are alive to the 
necessity of making use of their river, and the Danube, 
which flows through Ratisbon, would have been a favour- 
able stream for that use and decoration. Being navi- 
gable much higher up, and having daily steamers, the 
Danube is a main artery, and it is_ important that a 
main artery of a kingdom should be close to the capital. 
The Isar, on the other hand, has none of these advan- 
tages. It is merely a mountain stream, liable to fluc- 
tuations, and certain to be very much swollen with each 
spring melting of the mountain snows. It is not navi- 
gable save for rafts, and has to be dammed and furnished 
with a shoot for them. The town was never built along 
it, and is now gradually approaching it, though the 
bank on which the town is built is low and marshy, 
and the opposite bank is high, and save in some places 
unsuited for building. Up the Isar the scenery much 
improves, and in this direction pleasant excursions are 
to be made. But as a rule the country immediately 
round Munich is dreary and unattractive, and few faci- 
lities were given by nature for building a capital city in 
this situation. 

It is said, that King Ludwig asked some stranger 
which street he* preferred, the Ludwig' s or the Maxi- 
milian's Strasse. The stranger begged to be excused 



12 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



giving an answer; but the King insisted. And when 
the stranger very naturally replied, that he preferred 
the Maximilian's Strasse, the King called him a cad. 
But, in spite of the royal epithet, I think most will 
agree in the stranger's opinion. The Maximilian's Strasse 
is certainly the prettiest and liveliest street in Munich ; 
though not architecturally conspicuous, nor decked with 
such buildings as the Ludwig's Strasse. And though 
the Ludwig's Strasse is composed of copies, at least the 
copies have been selected from many places; whereas, 
the Maximilian's Strasse is merely a version of the 
Boulevards. As, in earlier times, all German princes 
were so much impressed by Louis XIV. that they copied 
him in his buildings ; so, in the present times, the 
Napoleonic seems likely to be the prevailing style. The 
palace of Nymphenburg, two and a-half miles out of 
Munich, is an evident imitation of Versailles, built on 
the principle Thackeray has somewhere mentioned, 
which impelled all German kings to have their Mon- 
bijous or Mon-plaisirs after the pattern of the Grand 
Monarque. In like manner they say that, when King 
Maximilian returned from Paris, his first impulse was 
to lay out the Maximilian's Strasse. In one thing at 
least he improved on his father, —he made his street 
lead somewhere. At the end of it he has built a bridge 
across the river to the high bank which looks down on 
Munich; he has laid out pleasant promenades there, 
with sloping plots, and larch and fir ; and built a large 
college to serve as ending to the street. How the pub- 
lic appreciate this, is seen in their choosing the street 
as their favourite walk, while the Ludwig's Strasse is 



PAGEANTRY. 



13 



almost deserted. For the Ludwig's Strasse leads no- 
where, and is at best a dismal walk, — only tolerable in 
wet weather for its paving. 

In dealing with the pictnresque aspect of Munich, I 
must not omit to notice the processions which take 
place on feasts, such as Corpus Christi, and at inaugura- 
tions of statues and buildings. The people of Munich 
are celebrated for the success of their processions, for the 
tasteful and artistic manner in which they are organised, 
and for the pictorial nature of their execution. The 
whole town seems to throw itself, heart and soul, into 
the pageant ; and no better time can be found for seeing 
Munich most favourably, and with the greatest enjoy- 
ment. I saw the Corpus Christi procession, at least the 
latter part of it, from a window commanding the Odeon 
Platz, where the whole train sweeps round; and the 
effect was gorgeous. The large square was hemmed in 
by soldiers on horseback, whose straight line gave a 
regularity to the space enclosed, and a definiteness to 
the limits of the stage. By every house door, young, 
light green birch trees were planted; and their leaves, 
shivering in the wind, threw out tints of delicious colour. 
Rich draperies, red and yellow, hung down from the 
windows, and at each window were ladies in light spring 
clothing, looking at a distance like flowers arranged in 
masses. To the right, the broad, desolate Ludwig^s 
Strasse stretched away, forming a contrast, with its 
silence, its emptiness, and its heavy buildings of solid 
colour, to the animated scene before us. On the left, 
the gaze was bounded by the light pillars of the Hall of 
Marshals, which was filled with foot soldiers, — a mass 



14 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of rich blue. Through all this space passed the pro- 
cession, in a multitude of hues. Friars leading in deep 
brown ; then a few rich crimson uniforms ; the King, 
under a canopy, surrounded by lighted tapers, and fol- 
lowed by yellow robes ; — so that the eye wandered rest- 
lessly over a wilderness of blending colours, like a pic- 
ture of Titian set in motion. And each change produced 
a new pictorial effect. As each colour passed, the whole 
picture changed, as if you had turned a kaleidoscope, or 
were watching a sunset. On the stage, with the even 
glare of the footlights, such a procession would have 
been robbed of half its charm. The open atmosphere, 
the clouds that flitted lightly across the sun, — threw a 
magic over the scene, that artificial means could not 
have supplied. 

Another picture that I witnessed in Munich was the 
work of nature alone ; but I do not know where nature 
produces such pictures, except in Munich. The spring 
had been unusually early, and all the trees and sprays 
were covered with that delicious dew of young delicate 
green, which Leigh Hunt has discussed so rapturously 
in his letters. On a sudden came a heavy fall of snow, 
which lay on all the trees, and was crusted and crystallised 
on the fresh young leaves. When the sun came out 
and shone bright, the contrast between the tender green 
below and the masses of pearly, sugary white, sparkling 
upon them, was like the contrast I saw at a performance 
of the Mariage de Figaro, when Marcelline was played 
by a young woman. The actress put on white hair, to 
suit the character, but was too vain to make her face 
look old ; and the white hair over the blooming face 



nature's pageantry. 



15 



was worthy of snow on green leaves. Perhaps it is pro- 
fanation of so lovely a picture, to compare it with the 
caprice of a French actress ; and it is a pity that some 
of the landscape painters of Munich did not snatch the 
transitory effect. 

Such is Munich from the outside ; and I am the more 
glad to dwell on the pictures it presents to me, as I 
shall have few occasions to revert to it. The inside of 
Munich is more my subject in this volume ; and I am 
sure the outside is the pleasant er of the two. 



CHAPTER II. 



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



In the celebrated story of the camel, the Frenchman 
writes a brief and brilliant feuilleton, the Englishman 
studies the habits of the animal for two years, and pro- 
duces a mass of facts undigested and scarcely under- 
stood, while the German retires to construct the camel 
out of his moral consciousness. This chapter must be 
the Englishman's chapter, though not without attempts 
on the part of the author to digest his facts, and refer 
them to principles. He is of opinion that national 
definitions have mostly proved unsatisfactory, by reason 
of rashness in forming conclusions, and wideness of 
generalisation. The following facts are put forward as 
those which have come under his own observation, 
checked by the remarks of friends. He does not wish 
to destroy the ideal figure of a German as painted in so 
many sketch books, or to set down the whole nation, 
north and south, as possessing those characteristics that 
he has seen in Munich. His experience goes to prove 
that the German nation is very far from resembling its 
fancy portraits. When he reads that " society is very 
pleasant, the Germans being frank and sociable/' he 



OF THE GERMANS. 



17 



cannot but ask which society, and what Germans ? He 
has met with the utmost sociability and frankness at 
one house, and with the utmost stiffness and reserve in 
others. He knows pleasant people who have lived twenty 
years in German towns, without making one friend 
among the natives ; yet he has friends himself of whose 
kindness he has often made proof. These are apparent 
contradictions, and yet they are easily explained. The 
first explanation lies on the surface; men differ from 
one another. You may find a man stiff and rude, to 
whatever nation he belongs. Englishmen are generally 
considered cold in France, and an Englishman who un- 
bends even in the slightest degree, may be complimented 
by being called half a Frenchman. And yet it is 
scarcely necessary to observe that there are Englishmen 
of social habits, even cheery men who will speak to 
their companions in the railway. The French are always 
polite and talkative, you say ; but I have met some who 
were neither. And so when the whole German nation 
is set down as simple and modest, remarkable for bra- 
very, good nature, good faith, and chastity, erring, 
perhaps, in their too great neglect of externals, the 
traveller can but shrug his shoulders, and produce thou- 
sands of instances to the contrary. 

There is another explanation, which applies to the 
case as in Munich, and this is the separation of classes, 
the division of society into layers, that are kept inde- 
pendent of each other. A person moving in high society 
may find it stiff and reserved, while another associating 
with the literary and scientific classes may find them 
frank and sociable. It is certain that the high society 



18 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



in Munich has a reputation for stiffness ; I can myself 
speak only favourably of the professional society. But 
besides these two there are many other divisions of which 
I am ignorant, and I do not profess myself competent 
to judge the conduct of the crime de la crime. The few 
occasions on which I have been permitted to take part 
in its rejoicings, have impressed me very deeply. I 
never found anything to reprehend in the young ladies' 
dresses, in the light and sparkling conversation that 
passed between the two sexes, in the courtesy of the 
entertainers, in the refinement that checked all excess of 
conviviality. To my humble notions everything seemed 
perfect. But a noble of Rome, whose taste had been 
educated in the ball-rooms of the gay cities which own 
Rome as their capital, passed a very different verdict. 
" You think that gay and pleasant/' he said, with ex- 
treme contempt, twirling his moustache. " Why, you 
never noticed what went on at the ball, or you have 
forgotten it. Shall I tell you what I saw ? I went up 
and asked a lady to dance ; she called for a sheet of 
foolscap paper which contained her engagements for the 
winter, and told me she could give me the third valse at 
the next ball but one. She asked me if I went to the 
pic-nic balls, and I found that was the name given to 
the gayest balls of the town, because they were held at 
an hotel." 

" I don't see the derivation," I remarked. 

" Evidently not. But it would be wrong to give the 
same name to a ball that takes place in an hotel, and a 
ball that takes place at court. So I accepted the dance 
offered me without a remark, and made my bow." 



OF DANCES. 



19 



" And no further conversation ?" 

" There you are again. Don't you know it is not 
the custom in Munich for ladies and gentlemen to talk 
together? Everybody would think you were engaged if 
you talked together. When a dance is over every gen- 
tleman drops his partner exactly where they happen to 
stop, in the middle of the room, or in one of the corners, 
and she finds her way across by herself. You see all 
the young ladies in one group between the dances, and 
all the young gentlemen in another group; the ladies 
by themselves, and the gentlemen by themselves, and 
the elderly people by themselves/' 

" Besides, you have the quadrilles and lancers ex- 
pressly for talking." 

" Vraiment ? I believe it requires two people to talk, 
and I never found the second. They pay so much at- 
tention to the figure that their minds are engrossed, or 
else they are like the Bermuda lady in Captain Marryat, 
who came to dance, and not to jabber. If you watch 
the progress of the lancers, you will see that there is no 
room for sliding in a word. Everybody takes it au 
grand serieux. The music plays at the speed of a dead 
march, and the gravity of countenance preserved by the 
company is quite portentous. To see the officers doing 
it you would think they were on parade. They stamp 
through all the parts where they ought to glide, and 
upon my word I believe they mark time when they 
ought to be standing. Then the bows and the curtseys, 
and the pauses between, and the solemnity of demeanour 
are perfectly appalling. I only once saw a bit of nature, 
when a gentleman with a Calmuck face stepped through 



20 



SOCIAL LIEE IN MUNICH. 



a lady's dress, and recoiled some paces hopping, and 
looking with horror at the offending foot which he held 
poised in the air for a penance. As for their quadrilles — 
would you believe it, they wound up the cotillon with a 
quadrille ? I was so extenuated by the course of the 
ball, and so nervous at the constant stamps, (you know r 
whenever a gentleman puts a lady down at the end of a 
turn he gives a stamp with his foot), that I lost all equa- 
nimity. A quadrille, I said. We always finish cotillons 
with a quadrille, replied my partner, with a stress on 
the always which placed the custom beyond appeal." 

" Of course," I replied to this tirade ; " every nation 
considers its customs more sacred than its laws." 

u One of your country -women found fault with the 
custom of giving beer at ball suppers instead of cham- 
pagne. And it does look strange to see the delicate 
ladies of an exclusive aristocracy quaffing goblets of beer 
after dancing. But I replied that good beer is better 
than bad champagne ; and that beer is more refreshing 
after dancing than anything, save champagne. Of course, 
I prefer champagne, but only when it is first-rate ; and 
how many people give you that ? Do they in England? 
No ; — there I think Munich is in the right." 

I answered the noble Roman, that the supper was to 
me the stumbling block of the evening. From the be- 
ginning of the ball I had been offended by the predo- 
minance of officers in uniform, seeing them arrive with 
their swords buckled on, as if they were charged with 
the preservation of order. One has a natural objection 
to carpet knights; and this objection is always liable to 
be transferred to those who are ever seen in uniform, 



OF THE MILITARY. 



21 



but never on duty ; who seem to wear the gay colours 
and the clashing metal for no other reason than to bear 
off the palm from sober civilians. Munich is, perhaps, 
the most offensive place in the world, or one of the most 
offensive, in this respect. I know of no other town in 
which one notices so many uniforms. When one goes 
from Munich to London, or even to Paris, one is agree- 
ably struck by the prevalence of the civil garb over the 
military. No officer in London would think of walking 
the streets in uniform ; and in Paris, I am told the em- 
ployment of uniform is formally restricted to those who 
are on duty. In Munich, on the other hand, no mili- 
tary man is allowed to appear in any other costume. 
The same rule exists in the small towns of France ; but 
I imagine the garrison is never as large, in proportion 
to the population, as it is in Munich. Here, there is 
one in seven in the army ; that is, every seventh person 
you meet is likely to be a soldier. And as the army is 
almost the only profession open to young men of family, 
the balls of the high society are monopolised by officers. 
The incongruous spectacle is daily presented, of officers 
driving themselves; and in Munich it is carried to a 
most ridiculous extent, by the want of carriages adapted 
for that purpose. If anything can be worse than the 
spectacle of officers in full uniform driving about the 
streets of a capital city, it is the sight of an officer driv- 
ing from the box of a ramshackle country carriage, with 
his servant occupying the body of the vehicle. After 
this, one can tolerate almost anything, — even the cus- 
tom so many officers in Munich have, of riding abreast 
of their grooms, which makes you take the groom for a 



22 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



friend of his master. But one really gets so sick of the 
everlasting soldiery in Munich, that one cannot but 
echo the sentiment which is fast growing with respect 
to these standing armies, and which is best expressed, 
in Thackeray's line : — " Go to ! I hate him and his 
trade." 

One pities recruits, who have been drawn by conscrip- 
tion instead of having taken the shilling, when one sees 
them drilled all day long, and beat and thumped if they 
do not instantly appreciate the niceties of platoon exer- 
cise. But when the recruit has become a full-blown 
soldier, and repays the brutality of his early treatment 
on the civilian, one almost regrets one's pity. Martial 
music is a fine thing, and the strains of a good brass 
band set the blood flowing faster; but whenever one 
gets close to a marching regiment, the band is sure to 
stop, and the detestable drums strike up in its place. 
The poet has stated his disgust at the drum's discordant 
sound ; and one has only to hear six or eight drummers 
beating as hard as they can on their diabolical parch- 
ment, to appreciate the epithet. Why cannot men walk 
without such a senseless row going on in front of them ? 
The perpetual jar is enough to drive a nervous man to 
despair ; it shakes the houses to their foundations, and 
seems to have got into the ground under your feet, and 
to be rumbling like premonitory symptoms of an earth- 
quake. 

To return, however, to the uniforms as they appear 
at balls. " One would think," I said, "that some revolu- 
tion, some invasion, was expected ; or are these swords 
only buckled on to defend the supper room?" But when 



A PRACTICAL VIEW. 



23 



you get to that quarter of the ball, you find it is much 
more a question of attack than of defence. "If the gentle- 
men only waited on the ladies before beginning them- 
selves " But the noble of Rome interrupted me, 

having listened with ill-disguised impatience to my long 
discourse. " My dear sir, it is all very well to use ifs ; 
but you should begin at the root of the matter. One 
complains that the society is stiff and ungracious ; and 
one finds fault with their customs. I could forgive them 
this, and a great deal more, on one condition — if they 
only had manners ! " 

With this my friend makes his bow, leaving me to 
note clown his strictures without being answerable for 
them. I confess there are other things connected with 
the society in Munich that strike me unfavourably. I 
think it awkward to see a footman helping his mistress 
out of her carriage, with one hand on the carriage door 
and the other employed in holding his hat by his side. 
To say nothing of the servility of the action, nor of its 
effect on the health in such a climate, it must be cen- 
sured as eminently unpractical. If the lady's foot 
catches in her dress, either the footman's hat, or his 
mistress, must fall on the pavement. I think it unwise 
to take up so much of the envelope with a man's titles, 
that you have to crowd his name and address into a 
small corner, and run the risk of your letter being mis- 
sent, owing to the care you have taken that your 
friend's dignity shall not be offended. I think it foolish 
to lay so much stress on the formality of paying visits, 
when a visit is only paid by sending two cards by a 
servant, — as if you could promote social intercourse by 



24 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



possessing an extraordinary number of impressions of 
every card plate. Either visiting means something or 
nothing. It may be a great nuisance; but one con- 
stantly submits to annoyances if they mean something. 
But if it means nothing, why is it enforced as it is in 
Munich? You never, by any chance, find people at 
home ; they are either just going out or just come in, or 
at their toilettes or at table. You may have exchanged 
cards with a man three months ago, and not know him 
when you meet him in the street. As for knowing the 
inside of his house, you might as well expect to know 
the inside of his mind. But you are represented by an 
oblong piece of card board on his table, and your name 
is inscribed on the tablet of his mind, that he may 
honour you with a similar object at the fitting time. 

The truth is, that so far from neglecting externals, 
the Germans carry the observance of externals to the 
most extravagant lengths. "What is the aggravation of 
titles, but an observance of outward show? And the 
idea of title is not confined to the nobility. As you go 
lower down you find every one with some sort of handle 
to his name. The authoress of " Quits " has made a 
pleasant scene out of a legal Doctor, and the English 
misapprehension of his employment; and in real life 
such cases are of constant occurrence. A man who 
cannot by any possibility get up a title, is bound to call 
himself a privatier, instead of leaving it to be implied 
by the absence of a formula ; and a newspaper writer 
is called a privatgelehrter — literally, private man of 
learning — in the address book. The custom of calling 
all women of the lower classes Madame, to distinguish 



STARS AND CROSSES. 



25 



them from those who are entitled to the more honour- 
able Frau, has an exactly opposite effect on strangers. 
The universal term of French courtesy, the name that 
stands by itself upon the steps of the ancient throne of 
France, must always seem preferable to a familiar and 
half- vulgar word, — a term of honour that few ladies, save 
Germans, would wish to bear. Hand-in-hand with this 
zeal for titles, goes the excessive use of decorations. 
Till the beginning of 1863, it was the custom to give 
away Orders every New Year's Day ; and on New Year's 
Day, 1861, no less than one hundred and forty were 
distributed. But the evil had got to such a height that 
a check was necessary ; and the custom fell to the ground 
on the 1st of January, 1863. It is said, that an order 
was issued by the King, instructing the ministers of 
state to be more chary of their recommendations, in 
order to enhance the value of the Bavarian Orders. 
But it is not by giving pieces of ribbon to two men of 
letters, instead of to six, that the value of the Order is 
enhanced, so long as the chief stars in the decorative 
firmament are bestowed on chamberlains and gentlemen- 
in-waiting. We are pleased, when an Order is granted 
to an eminent artist or man of mental acquirements ; 
perhaps the more, that such men are slighted by the 
custom of England. We can fully appreciate the idea 
of Nelson going into action at Trafalgar, with his 
four stars on his frock coat, as we can understand his 
answer to his officers : — " In honour I gained them, 
and in honour I will die with them." But when one 
gentleman gets a grand cross for acting a part of upper 
lackey, and another for telling the King the last bit 



26 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of gossip in Court French, the notion is too prepos- 
terous. 

I have never gone so far into the secrets of the grave, 
as to ascertain if people are buried with their decora- 
tions. It is the custom in Munich to bury people in 
full dress; and what is still worse, to lay them out 
behind a window, bedizened as if for a fete. Goethe 
reproached some one for going to see a friend laid out 
for burial ; adding, that he preferred to keep the memory 
of his friend as he was when alive, not the ghastly 
memory of his features, stiffened by death. The taste 
of Munich is quite opposed to this saying. Crowds of 
people go to the dead house and stand before the windows, 
looking at young girls in ball dresses — old men with 
bouquets of flowers on their bosoms. Burns, in his 
Tarn O'Shanter, has hinted at the scene : — 

" Coffins stood round like open presses, 
That sliaw'd the dead in their last dresses." 

Much has been written against the Morgue ; but there 
is at least an object in exposing unknown bodies, that 
they may be claimed by their relations. In Munich 
there is no reason, but pampered, disgusting curiosity — 
an ignoble prurience, that every government should be 
bound to suppress. The idea of exposing young girls in 
ball dresses, with wreaths of flowers round their heads, 
may, perhaps, suggest doubts to those over-literalists 
who consider the resurrection of the body material — not 
spiritual. If all were to rise again at the last day just 
as they had been buried, it would hardly be appropriate 
to rise in a ball dress. But this is the least objection 



THE SIGHT OF DEATH. 



27 



to be made to the Munich custom. It is marvellous, 
that in a capital town, so widely renowned for its taste, 
that Mr. Falkener's Daedalus is dedicated to the Bava- 
rian people; a town, in which the police have always 
exercised the strictest supervision over public morals, 
such a spectacle should be open to all the world, and 
should be attended with such vulgar ostentation. 

Not only in the matter of burials does death become 
a mere form. It is seized on as an opportunity for the 
most tedious and annoying ceremonial, which entirely 
robs it of its meaning, while adding to its horrors. 
When a person receives the last sacraments, it is the 
custom for the nearest relations to be present, in full 
uniform. The day after a death, the survivor receives 
the visits of all the town. I have heard of a widow 
sitting down in a suit of black that had been hastily run 
up during the night of her husband's death, and seeing 
all her friends and acquaintances while the body was 
yet unburied. One cannot conceive the union of feel- 
ing with this formality ; nor is it possible that any one 
who mourned her loss could admit the world to gaze 
upon it. 

Germans often express their surprise that Englishmen 
should go to indifferent tea-parties in full dress, while 
they wear only morning dress to important dinners in 
the middle of the day. On the other hand it seems 
strange to English people to put on their evening clothes 
at one o'clock, even though they have the ultra-English 
habit of dressing every evening. One sees Germans 
walking about in full black at one o'clock, sometimes 
with a white wide-awake on the top, which has a sin- 



28 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



gular effect in broad daylight. I confess myself inclined 
to strike a balance between the two customs, believing 
them both to be formal. But in Munich the recog- 
nition of the right hand is made a point of even more 
formality than the full dress for an early dinner. When- 
ever a lady goes into a house the mistress of the house 
conducts her to the sofa, and places her on the right 
hand side. In many places the sofa is meant for nothing 
else, and I remember a person who let furnished lodg- 
ings objecting to the tenant lying on the sofa, because 
that was not the proper use for it. In what other 
country but Germany could one have left - handed mar- 
riages, as if the sanctity of the marriage tie lay in the 
right hand of the bridegroom, and a mixed marriage 
could only be contracted by the left ? Perhaps the most 
ridiculous use of this custom, the one winch carries its 
own punishment with it, is seen when a gentleman 
drives a lady, or a servant drives a gentleman. I have 
myself witnessed a gentleman driving a lady in a phae- 
ton, the gentleman sitting on the left hand, and the lady 
on the right. One need not be a good whip to see the 
absurdity, and to predict the consequences. If the 
driver had to give the slightest touch of the whip to his 
horses, he would infallibly hit the lady in the face with 
his elbow. 

But it is not often that you see a gentleman driving 
a lady in Munich. A kind of separate maintenance 
seems the rule, especially in the evening. I know of 
very few families in which the evening is passed in a 
sociable way, in which the husband stays at home with 
his wife. It is the old story of the French stage ; 



CLUBS OF MUNICH. 



29 



Ou passer ai-je mes soirees? But instead of the gay and 
brilliant cafe life of Paris, the husbands of Munich have 
what they call their clubs at taverns, or breweries. A 
curious chapter might be written on the clubs of Munich. 
The temptations they offer are certainly not the same 
as those which entice so many married men in Lon- 
don to their bachelor] palaces in Pall Mall. They 
are rather clubs in the earlier sense of the word, not 
possessing a house of their own, but only a room in 
some tavern, which is theirs for the time. And yet 
their attractions seem even more powerful, as every 
genuine Municher makes a point of spending the even- 
ing at his club, and the wives of Munich people are 
always abandoned. It is said that many gentlemen 
object to making an exception even for their marriage 
evening, and libellers declare that the ladies, when left 
alone, immediately attire themselves in extreme neg- 
lige, and knit stockings. Probably from this custom of 
clubs has grown the rival custom of coffee parties at- 
tended by ladies alone ; an opposition measure, which is 
perfectly excused by the circumstances. Meanwhile the 
men are collected in a room, smoking and drinking 
beer. The smoke is so thick, that clothes and hair 
smell of it for days to come. 

The names of the Munich clubs are not so far-fetched 
as those recorded in the Book of Snobs, but they 
are sometimes even more inappropriate. For instance, 
one of them is the " Old Englishmen but the club 
which bears this name does not number one English- 
man among its members. I was invited to a military 
club by two men, who were both civilians. But to 



30 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



English ideas the Fisher Club would bear away the 
prize of absurdity. One naturally supposes that a club 
of this nature would look after the interests of fishing ; 
would take a water, preserve it strictly, and confine it to 
the members; would secure, as far as possible, the 
preservation of fish in other waters, and have the right 
of fishing in them. Nothing of the sort is attempted. 
The Fisher Club has no corporate existence out of 
the room in which it meets during the winter. I read 
in a newspaper that it has turned its attention to the 
breeding of fish, and that it has stocked several of the 
rivers near Munich during the last two or three years. 
But while poaching is general, and fishermen live on 
the produce of the lakes and rivers in Bavaria, it is of 
little use stocking the waters, especially when they are 
not the property of the Fisher Club. And the actual 
proceedings of the club are in no way connected with 
fishing. The members meet once a month in a room 
belonging to a tavern, they sit round a table smoking 
and drinking beer, while a scientific authority delivers a 
lecture on some scientific question. All this is well 
enough; the lectures are generally able and instruc- 
tive in the highest degree ; but an Englishman considers 
a fisher club ought to fish instead of talk. 

The domestic life of the Germans has been so often 
and so fully described, that I have carefully avoided it 
in this chapter. But one or two points may be men- 
tioned in passing. Let me confirm the general idea 
that the Germans dislike fresh air, by stating that in 
many houses in Munich there is not one window opened 
from autumn to spring. A French author has called 



JUSTICE TO BABIES. 



31 



attention to the singular mode of carrying home petti- 
coats from the wash, sticking them upon poles like large 
cotton umbrellas, so that you see petticoats walking the 
streets after the manner of Birnam Wood on its march 
to Dunsinane. The very reverse of this freedom is 
allotted to babies. Young English mothers are more 
indignant at the injustice shown to these tender crea- 
tures than they are at the public exhibition of their own 
under garments. The unfortunate child is thrust into 
a feather pillow, and swathed like an Egyptian mummy, 
with tight bindings of tapes confining arms and legs, 
and all the other members which a baby loves to dis- 
port in freedom and familiarity. Even that unruly 
member, the tongue, is chained, by the thrusting of a 
lump of cloth with a piece of sugar inside it, or a com- 
pound of sugar and the crumb of bread, into the infant 
mouth. I leave it to the mothers of England, and to 
learned writers on the treatment of children, to decide 
if these practices are healthy, if the limbs are not liable 
to be stunted by the bandaging, and the stomach weak- 
ened by constant sucking at the sugar bag. The appear- 
ance is certainly not pleasing, nor does the aspect of 
the babies of Munich bear witness to the good effects 
of their training. 



CHAPTER III. 



ROYALTY. 



This book would very inadequately express the senti- 
ments of Munich, if an early chapter were not given to 
kings. In no capital that I have seen, is loyalty so 
general or so obtrusively shown, as in the capital of 
Bavaria. It seems to be a law, that the smaller a 
monarch the more respect is paid to him; and perhaps 
it is fortunate ; for the ruler of a great country would 
sink under the weight of that homage which the ruler 
of a small country finds grateful and refreshing. In a 
small capital, the king is much nearer his subjects than 
in a large one. He walks about the streets almost un- 
attended ; is constantly seen driving ; and his move- 
ments are known to the whole community. The gulf 
that separates him from them is much smaller; and, 
therefore, he seems to some extent one of themselves, — 
a being of flesh and blood, though glorified. And people 
always respect the highest among themselves more than 
the highest in another scale of being. To the soldier, a 
general is a much greater man than an admiral ; to the 
lawyer, the lord chancellor, and to the clergyman, the 
archbishop, are supreme; while the small noble con- 



SIGNS OF LOYALTY. 



33 



siders the highest rank in the nobility more truly ve- 
nerable than any other conceivable dignity. In the 
admiration thus felt, there is something definite and 
easily explained ; in all other respects there is an un- 
certainty, which naturally leads to heartless and lip- 
loyalty. 

It is only on this principle one can explain the extra- 
vagance of Munich loyalty. It is not directed towards 
the achievements of either king alone ; for, though 
both the reigning king and the king who has abdicated 
have done much for Munich, they have not done enough 
to entitle them to such ultra professions of regard. Nor 
is the regard confined to the heads of the royal family ; 
every member of it, and of its branches, is greeted with 
equal fervour. Every time one of these personages 
goes out walking, the passengers stop, draw up in a 
line, take off their hats and bow to the ground. This 
is done to young princesses of a distant branch, when 
they are walking with their governesses, and to the 
young princes, when they are walking with their tutor. 
On snowy days, when the Queen walks up and down 
the arcades, with two footmen behind her, the strollers 
there have to draw up in a line every time she passes. 
And as these arcades are the great resort of Munich in 
bad weather, and the turns taken by the Queen are 
many, it may almost be calculated that every walk of 
hers costs her subjects six or eight hats. It is not 
sufficient to raise the hat, as is done in countries of 
more advanced civilisation : each hat has to be pulled 
off and held crown downwards, in which position all the 
weight is thrown on the brim. Munich hats are bad 

c 2 



34 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH* 



by nature; and I doubt if even Lincoln and Bennet 
would long resist such a pressure. Baron Thiebault, 
whose book on Munich I shall shortly have occasion to 
notice, complains of the necessity of doffing the hat com- 
pletely, and says, that hats last longer in Paris than in 
Munich. But the elder branch of royalty insists on the 
full salute ; and the custom is too deeply rooted in the 
people to be speedily abolished. The salute is not con- 
fined to royalty. Friends offer it to each other ; and if 
you are walking with a man, you must salute every one 
whom he salutes. There is an old story, of a notice 
posted up in some German town, requesting people not 
to take off their hats ; but one can scarcely believe that 
any movement has been made in the right direction. 
It is said that, during the Revolution, King Ludwig 
snatched off the hat of some man who did not salute 
him, and flung it on the ground. Prince Charles, his 
brother, abused a gentleman at Tegernsee for slightly 
raising his hat, instead of making the customary salute. 
One's only consolation is, that these royal people are 
more heavily taxed than their subjects. You bow once 
to each of them you meet; but they have to bow to 
everbody who meets them. How many hats do they 
use, I wonder? Baron Thiebault saw King Ludwig 
walking down the streets with his hat in his hand, to 
avoid having to take it off every minute, and this with 
the thermometer many degrees below zero. 

But it is no real alleviation of an annoyance to reflect, 
that those who insist upon it are more annoyed than 
yourself. Common-sense considerations should have 
the first place, in regulating the amount of respect to 



HATS. 



35 



be shown to individuals ; and where is the common 
sense of using twice as many hats as necessary, in 
a town where good hats are unattainable? It gives 
a man no more pleasure to have a hat swung right off in 
his honour, than to have it slightly raised, or to be bowed 
to politely. What pleasure does a king feel, in waking 
up his subjects at six in the morning, by banging of 
cannon to announce his birthday ? One turns round 
in disgust, and wishes he had never been born. I think 
it is Victor Hugo, in the " Miserables," who makes a 
calculation of the money spent yearly in foolish banging 
away of powder in saluting, and of the good that might 
be done with it, And in Munich, all carriages and 
horsemen are still bound to stop when royalty comes 
along the road, — a regulation of constant inconvenience 
in a small capital. I am told, and I hope it is true, 
that the reigning King of Bavaria is glad to have a 
sensible lift of the hat from a stranger ; and he has only 
to put himself against the needless servility of stopping 
all carriages he meets, to earn the praise of the first 
Alexander. " Enthusiastically beloved by his subjects/' 
says Sir Archibald Alison, " Alexander had, immediately 
on his accession to the throne, abolished the custom of 
alighting from the carriage whenever the royal equipages 
were met, which had excited so much discontent under 
his tyrannical predecessor ; but the respect of his sub- 
jects induced them to continue the practice, and to 
avoid such a mark of oriental servitude, he was in the 
habit of driving about, without guards, in a private 
chariot." Oriental servitude is, perhaps, the most ap- 
propriate term for such extravagant loyalty. So grateful 



36 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



should I feel to any one who would procure the abolition 
of the custom that I would — take my hat off to him. 
Of all that has been written on the subject of hats, 
scarcely anything seems to have touched the question 
of taking them off. Fielding, whose chapter of hats, 
in Jonathan Wild the Great, has been pronounced 
by Coleridge superior to anything written by Swift in 
Lilliput, or The Tale of a Tub, confines himself 
chiefly to the wearing of them. His satire is, to some 
extent, a forestalment of Sartor Resartus, viewing hats 
as types of political differences, or as professional sym- 
bols. Everything is found in Shakspeare, however; and 
the pith of the question I have debated is given in 
one line of Hamlet : — "The bonnet to his right use;" 
says Hamlet to Osrick; — "'tis for the head." Judging 
by the importance assigned by some to the wearing of 
hats, one would think the bonnet was not made for the 
head — but the head for the bonnet; and in Munich, 
hats do not seem made to be put on — but to be taken 
off. It is true, that both these objections might be 
answered by a reference to the quality and occupation 
of some most sedulous saluters; as their heads seem 
only made to put hats on, and their hands only made 
to take hats off. 

These, then, are the outward and visible signs of loy- 
alty, deserving the first place in a chapter devoted to 
subjective treatment of royalty rather than objective. 
The institution of kings is not in itself a matter of such 
interest to me that I should write of it as some have 
done, nor has my stay in Munich inoculated me with 
Munich loyalty, though it seems to be catching. With- 



A COURT GUIDE, 



37 



out adducing other examples to prove the contagious 
effects of the air of the place, the French book to which 
I have just alluded will serve my purpose. I do not 
imagine any French author would gossip about the tri- 
vial details of imperial life as Baron Thiebault has done 
about the infinitely more trivial details of Bavarian royal 
life, or would set down word for word a formal conversa- 
tion between himself and the Emperor as the Baron has 
done for the king of Bavaria. But Baron Thiebault goes 
so fully into all these matters that his volume is quite a 
Court Guide, and my knowledge of Bavarian royalty is 
due to it alone. The baron tells us that the king dines 
at half-past three, goes to bed at half-past ten, and rises 
all the year round at five ; that the queen drinks beer 
every night, and does not like being addressed as Madame 
by French people, because in Germany Madame is a 
disparaging title. He expresses his regret that he began 
the Carnival by not bowing to the Queen, and ended it 
by sitting next to a prince without knowing him. He 
enlarges on the literary character of the whole house of 
Bavaria, and contrasts it favourably with the Catalogue 
of Royal Authors. He copies out the genealogy of the 
reigning house when he is kept at home by a fever, and 
adds a list of the mediatised princes, and the whole 
Bavarian nobility. When presented to the Queen he 
was troubled by the doubt whether or no she would 
recognise the bold promenader who did not salute her. 
Presented to Prince Charles he won that amiable prince's 
heart by praising beer. " Ah," said the prince quickly, 
" I, too, am a brewer ! I had evidently touched a tender 
chord. I had been a courtier without knowing it!" 



38 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH . 



Bold promenader, and courtier without knowing it, are 
singular epithets to be applied to Baron Thiebault. His 
royal pursuits must have been all-engrossing to enable 
him to write a work on Munich in which the name of 
Liebig is only mentioned once, in a panegyric on the 
King; in which the galleries are dismissed in a page, 
and literature only introduced in its princely shape ; in 
which Munich's real claims to distinction are ignored, 
and the motley character of King Ludwig's buildings 
proclaimed their chief merit. But he was occupied with 
other things. Listen to his account of his presentation 
to King Maximilian. " I print the conversation almost 
word for word. The King. You have been unwell? 
Myself. That alone forbade my soliciting the honour of 
being presented to your Majesty on the 1st of January. 
The King. I am glad to see that you are better. Our 
climate is somewhat severe for strangers. Myself. Out 
of doors one must be warmly clad, but when at home 
the houses are so well heated, that one has no idea of 
the temperature without. The King. Are you related to 
the author of the " Recollections of Twenty Years Stay 
in Berlin?" Myself. Yes, sire, Dieudonne Thiebault 
was my grandfather. The King. Well, sir, I have made 
these " Recollections " the object of special study. I 
know them by heart. Myself I thank your Majesty 
very humbly for having the goodness to say so flat- 
tering a thing to me, and I am happy to see that my 
name is not entirely strange to your Majesty. The King, 
Do you speak German? Myself. No sire, no more 
than my grandfather. The King. He had a reason for 
not learning it. Myself. Doubtless, sire, he had pro- 



ROYAL CONVERSATION, 



89 



mised the king of Prussia. The King. And he kept his 
word. Frederick thought that was the best way to pre- 
serve his French from Germanism. Do you stay any time 
in Munich ? Myself. My intention, sire, is to pass the 
winter. The King. I hope that you will enjoy yourself, 
and above all that your health will be good." King Lud- 
wigreceivedthe baron as graciously, telling him his grand- 
father had replaced Voltaire at Berlin, but not with the 
ideas of Voltaire. The conversation turned on the 
Emperor of the French, and King Ludwig said he had 
known Queen Hortense, that she was amiable and witty, 
but added, " smiling, shutting his eyes, putting his 
mouth close to my ear, and even pulling me by the arm 
to draw me closer — not pretty." 

Except as showing the character of the writer, and 
affording texts for reflections on the strange fascination 
of royalty, these descriptions are worthless. We learn 
nothing of the character of the two kings from them, 
nothing more than what we know already. To mere 
observers in the street, who have never been presented 
at court, King Max seems somewhat prosy, and King 
Ludwig partially cracked. Any one admitted to see 
them at home, and speak to them, might have carried 
away some more definite idea of them, one would have 
thought ; might have discovered new traits, or explained 
the old ones. But Baron Thiebault has attempted no- 
thing of the kind. One casual glimpse indeed he gives 
us, but only incidentally, and without seeming to attach 
any importance to it, of a singular custom in the court 
life of Munich. King Ludwig received him, he says, 
in uniform, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. 



40 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Was he just going to a review ? asks the reader. No, 
he had just risen from table. Strange custom which 
requires a pacific king to dine in a soldier's uniform, 
wearing his sword. One step further, and you have the 
dress in which the inhabitants of Branksome Hall were 
in the habit of messing : — 

" They carved at the meal 
With gloves of steel, 
And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred." 

But the costume which might be appropriate on the 
Border is ridiculous in a time of profound peace, and in 
the midst of civilisation. Why is it that so many rulers 
in Germany make the military dress their constant 
covering ? In a military man like the King of Prussia 
it is somewhat natural, though the extent to which 
he carries it is ridiculous. A king who has no fur- 
ther view than one bounded by a square of soldiers, 
and whose highest ideal is the profession of drill, may 
very properly wear helmet, epaulets, and sword, for 
dining, dancing and praying. But the kings of Bavaria 
have a better ideal, and less limited views. The more 
pity that they do not set themselves against the use of 
this detestable dress, the badge of sad necessity in war, 
but of idleness and worthless parade, if nothing worse, 
in time of peace. " The first consul appeared on all 
occasions in uniform, with boots and spurs," says 
Alison, in describing the steps by which Napoleon intro- 
duced the reaction against republicanism, which was to 
lead to his assumption of absolute power. With this 
view the military dress was substituted for the Greek 



THE MEANING OF DRESS. 



41 



and Roman costumes, in the folds of which Jacobinism 
was supposed to lurk. The motive is here intelligible ; 
but if King Ludwig selected any dress on the same 
principle, it ought to be a mediaeval costume to match 
with his buildings. He ought to appear one day in the 
garb of Pericles, when he walks towards the Glypto- 
thek, another day in Florentine costume, another day 
as Emperor or Pontiff. It must be this idea that has 
caused the sculptor of his equestrian statue to mix up 
all times in the monarch's costume, and the mixture 
might be consistent in King Ludwig. But there is 
another point to be considered in introducing Napoleon. 
He had earned the best right to appear in military cos- 
tume. He had won his spurs. Bivoli, Areola, the 
Pyramids, were the exploits by which he was known, 
and the man who had worn the soldier's dress there 
might justly parade it at Paris. 

A strange mode of complimenting soldiers of other 
nations is adopted by monarchs in general. Each Ger- 
man king is colonel of some regiment in every other 
German state, — an unmeaning form, with the sole merit 
that it ought to be embarrassing in case of war between 
any two states. Such regiments ought to be called on 
to choose between their king and their colonel ; but 
the want of true meaning is shown in the absence of 
any such embarrassment. By similar usage, all royal 
people are related, which ought consistently to make war 
between them as sinful as family quarrels. But as this 
relationship leads only to each being addressed as mon 
cousin, and entitled to foolish black throughout all the 
courts of Europe in the event of death ; so the various 



42 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



colonelcies only lead to changes of raiment. Whenever 
a distinguished Austrian officer is received by the King 
of Bavaria, you read in the papers, that, out of compli- 
ment to his guest, the King wore his uniform as colonel 
of such an Austrian regiment. The time of German 
kings seems to be occupied in receiving people and 
changing their dresses between the receptions. Every- 
body of note has to be received; — foreign officers, 
foreign ministers, new members of the diplomatic corps, 
singers, actors and ballet-dancers, who are starring it at 
the theatre. If the King has to change his dress for 
each one of his visitors, the day would be almost too 
short for many receptions. I cannot think the compli- 
ment conveyed is worth the trouble incurred. What is 
the exact value of the compliment? If it were only 
paid now and then, it might be a distinction ; but then 
it is done so often. And in cases, such as the meeting 
of the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, the 
double-barrelled compliment seems to miss fire. You 
read, that the King of Prussia wore his Austrian uniform, 
out of compliment to the Emperor of Austria ; and the 
Emperor of Austria wore his Prussian uniform, out of 
compliment to the King of Prussia. The Charivari, 
indeed, quoted the proverb, that " if you would learn a 
man's thoughts you must put on his skin," and added, 
that not being able to change skins, the two sovereigns 
had changed uniforms. But any one present, who did not 
know the two monarchs, would not have appreciated 
the mutual delicacy, and would merely have taken the 
King of Prussia for the Emperor of Austria, and the 
Emperor of Austria for the King of Prussia. Scoffing 



NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPHS. 



43 



minds are also led to ask, if these kings put on foreign 
uniforms to receive foreign officers as becomes their 
merit, why do they not put on tights and fleshings to 
receive ballet-dancers? 

It is from the newspapers I learn the facts of all these 
receptions, and, in gratitude for the information, I will 
show the manner in which it is given. Thackeray says, 
that he was moved with such curiosity to learn the com- 
position of the Court Circular, that he bribed the 
editor of some daily paper to let him see the man who 
brought it. But what is the bare statement of facts 
which interest every loyal subject in the columns of the 
London papers to the German expansion of such facts ? 
The German papers seem to keep correspondents for 
nothing else than to chronicle royal doings in the most 
fulsome style. Carlyle complained that no other topic 
was discussed throughout the newspapers, save theatrical 
proceedings, reminding us of Swift's remark, that when 
he was young, he thought all the world, as well as him- 
self, was wholly taken up in discoursing upon the last new 
play. " If you see ' intelligence from Munich/ — ' intel- 
ligence from Berlin/ — ( intelligence from Vienna/ — 
it is only intelligence of green-room controversies and 
negotiations." But this complaint can no longer be ut- 
tered with truth. Theatrical news has been superseded 
by court items, and the only possible way of laying 
these before the English reader, is by following the 
example Carlyle himself has set in one of his later 
writings. One may venture to give literal translations 
of German Court Circular phrases for which no equiva- 
lent can be found in English, after reading this passage 



44 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



in Frederick the Great: — "The King, who himself 
sometimes deigns to take the regiments into highest 
own eye-shine — hoehst-eigenen augenschein, (that is to 
review them), say the reverential editors." It is, pjpr- 
haps, a just punishment on Carlyle for his attack on 
theatrical news, that the only news which has succeeded 
it, is such as must be translated by parodying him. 
Instead of green-room controversies taking up all the 
paper, whenever you see "news from Munich," it is 
sure to be something about high Fraus and most serene 
princes; how duke this has gone to Venice, and duke 
that to Salzburg ; how King Ludwig met the Grand 
Duchess of Modena at the railway station, and pleas- 
ingly surprised her. You look in the paper for an ac- 
count of the Artists' Ball, and find the only statement 
about it is, that the Queen was present, and the most 
serene princes accompanied highest-their Frau mother. 
You wish to read an account of the Corpus Christi 
procession, one of the grandest spectacles Munich can 
afford, and you find that the King was represented by 
Prince Luitpold, and that the Queen and her sons looked 
on from their apartments in the palace. " The proces- 
sion took place in the usual manner," says the writer ; 
"though there were several small showers, the train 
continued without interruption." The paragraph re- 
minds me of that story of a reporter who was sent to 
describe an eclipse, and who, after giving the time at 
which it took place, and one or two similar details, 
added, " the proceedings were entirely devoid of public 
interest." 

These writers are evidently of opinion that public in- 



EX-PRINCES. 



45 



terest is, or ought to be, concentrated on the proceed- 
ings of royalty. All other subjects are secondary. It 
is rather interesting to examine the views that are put 
forth by them, if we would estimate the nature of the 
opposition a large class of people is prepared to offer to 
any social or political progress. To judge from the re- 
spect they show to the Austro-Italian ex-grand dukes, 
and to the king of the brigands of Naples, it would 
seem that they hold the belief, " once a king, always a 
king." Even in 1862, we read that the Queen Marie 
of the Two Sicilies is going to pay a visit to her sister, 
before returning to her consort, King Francis the Second, 
at Rome; the writer forgetting that for the last year 
there have not been two Sicilies, but one Italy. The 
Grand Duke Ferdinand of Tuscany is a phrase that 
constantly recurs in the German papers, although he 
never even sat on the throne of Tuscany, his father 
having abdicated in favour of his people, before he re- 
signed in favour of his son. No doubt it is a matter of 
surprise to conservative writers like these Court Cir- 
culars, that the Queen of Hanover should be able to 
arrive in Munich at a quarter past four, be photographed 
instantly, and depart at five ; an amount of speed that 
never was attained in the good old days. But the writer 
retains his presence of mind even in the face of such an 
astonishing event, and records hurriedly that her Majesty 
came with her high family, and was received in the 
station by the royal Hanoverian ambassador. But none 
of the writers I have produced can vie with a Salzburg 
correspondent, who was fortunate enough to witness the 
arrival of the Empress of Austria in that town, and her 



46 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



meeting with her husband. He is entitled to literal 
translation. " Even now departed from Salzburg the 
all-highest ruler-pair. The emperor had already arrived 
here at nine this morning, paid a visit to the £tnpress 
widow and drove with her to the (by the then in the 
London Exhibition absent Archduke Ludwig Victor 
evacuated) country seat Klessheim. Erom hence their 
majesties repaired to the near the Railway lying Villa 
Schwarz, and after a short view of it, to the Station 
where the authorities and a selected share of the public 
had found themselves, which (the selected share) ex- 
pected with excited interest the arrival of the much- 
loved Empress Elizabeth. In the midday heat, 15 mi- 
nutes before 12, rolled the Munich Court carriage train 
slowly and noiselessly with the longed-for guests into 
the station. Scarcely that the engine stood, the em- 
peror mounted the Saloon-carriage, to greet in the same 
his high consort in the heartfullest manner. A few mo- 
ments later the empress widow also betook herself into the 
carriage of the reigning empress, embracing and kissing 
her. The emperor immediately helped both the em- 
presses out of the carriage. The empresses entered the 
Perron, and then retired for a short time into the inner 
chambers of the station. The young empress was 
veiled, wore a black silk dress and a pretty round straw 
hat of dark colour, which a brown wing-feather of a 
golden pheasant decorated. In spite of the veil the full 
healthy traits and the high colour of the high Frau 
were to be remarked. With the same had also come 
the serene mother, the Erau Duchess Max, as also the 
Princes Charles Theodore and Max Emmanuel with 



A PLEA FOR PRIVACY. 



47 



the Princess Mathilda Countess of Trani and the Prin- 
cess Sophie (collectively brothers and sisters of the 
empress) as also the Neapolitan Prince Louis Count of 
Trani. At | past 12 the empress mounted, visibly 
touched by the family farewell and holding a white 
handkerchief before her mouth, yet vigorously the car- 
riage, in which also the emperor and Prince Charles 
Theodore took places, after which the train set itself in 
motion to Frankenmarkt where dinner was ordered 
for the all-highest lordships." 

Absurd as this passage may seem, it is difficult for a 
reflecting man to read it without sadness. After all, 
these " high lordships " are flesh and blood like the rest 
of us, and it is charitable to suppose that they have our 
feelings, at least as regards themselves and their nearest 
kindred. The man who as absolute master of a king- 
dom plunges all his subjects into war sooner than resign 
one part of them, and causes general misery rather than 
relieve partial misery, may be loving and affectionate to 
those who are companions of his life, may have the 
same feelings himself that he disregards in all the thou- 
sand families under his sway. And yet these feelings 
are not thought too sacred to be pawed by a Court 
Circular scribe, and profaned by his mixture of toadyism 
and familiarity. We may be glad that when we meet 
our wives our greetings are not being noted down by a 
correspondent, and do not afford an opportunity for 
other writers to sneer at us under pretence of rebuking 
the toadyism of our chronicler. 

It is a relief to turn from this subject to another, 



48 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



which is sheer humbug ; and yet a moment's considera- 
tion tells us, that a worse blasphemy is here committed 
than that outrage on our affections. When we read a 
programme of the court ceremonies to be performed on 
Holy Thursdays, we forget for the moment the sacred 
meaning of what is thus travestied. We forget that, 
when the King assists at a ceremony, in which he drops 
a little water on the feet of twelve old men, who have 
been washed for the occasion, he is repeating an act of 
which we cannot read without being most deeply moved. 
How is it possible to connect this most ceremonious cere- 
monial with that so meaning and so touching act of 
love ! It is only by excluding any connection that we 
are able to view the thing calmly. But the piling up of 
form upon form very soon makes us forget that any- 
thing more than a court ceremony can be intended. 
And it is not likely, that any one who assists at it ever 
casts his thoughts back to the upper room, which is sup- 
posed to be represented by the Hercules Saal in the 
palace. Here, then, is the programme of the ceremo- 
monial : — 

" After the procession held to day, and after comple- 
tion of vespers, His Majesty the King betake himself 
out of all-highest-his oratory in the Residenz chapel, 
preceded by the grand cortege, to the Hercules Chamber, 
in which all-highest-the-same deign to perform the feet- 
washing and feeding of the twelve old men. His Ma- 
jesty the King and the most serene Princes, Royal 
Highnesses, betake themselves to their seats, accom- 
panied by all-highest and highest-their attendants. The 



THE KING'S PART. 



49 



grand cortege takes the seats assigned to it. The clergy, 
which enters after this, betakes itself, after reverence 
made to the all-highest court, to the altar, by which 
two pages stand with burning wax torches, performs 
the usual church functions, and sings the gospel, which 
is brought by the assistants, accompanied by two pages, 
to his majesty the King and their royal highnesses to 
be kissed. After this, his majesty the King give his 
hat and sword to all-highest-his upper chamberlain, 
who gives both to the chamberlains on duty. At the 
same time, the royal high steward receives from the sub- 
deacon the can filled with water, and bears it to His 
Majesty on a salver, as also the court marshal with 
the foot-towel for drying, which he has received from 
the plate keeper. As soon as the director of the Royal 
Chapel leaves the altar, and, attended by the two Levites, 
goes to the old men, his majesty the King, escorted by 
the chief master of ceremonies, and accompanied by 
the high steward, upper chamberlain, capitaine des 
gardes, court marshal and upper-plate-chamberlain on 
duty, walk to the eldest of the men near the grand 
cortege, and the feet-washing begins in this way :— 
The royal high steward hands the can to his majesty 
the King, the sub-deacon holds the basin, which was 
placed on the altar for this purpose, under the uncovered 
foot. His Majesty sprinkle the uncovered foot of each 
old man, and dry the same with the cloth presented 
by the court marshal, on which the director of the Royal 
Chapel kisses the foot of each one. On completion of 
the feet-washing, the royal head-plate-chamberlain places 
himself with the pitcher appointed for the sprinkling of 

D 



50 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the hands of His Majesty, then a page with the basin, 
and a page with the towel on a salver, by the last old 
man ; after the sprinkling, His Majesty allow the towel 
which is held ready for drying his hands by the head 
chamberlain to be handed by the Prince Luitpold, high- 
est-who is brought from his seat for this purpose by a 
royal master of ceremonies at the right time, and is 
accompanied by the chamberlain on duty. During this 
proceeding, the whole clergy returns to the altar, and 
there finishes the clerical functions. The royal high 
steward receives at the door of the knight's chamber, 
from one of his staff, the gift of money in white and blue 
purses, on a salver covered with blue taffeta, to be pre- 
sented to His Majesty. Before his majesty the King 
hang the purses of money, which are carried round by 
the high steward, on the neck of each of the twelve old 
men, all-highest-the same receive his sword from the 
hands of the head chamberlain, but not till the last 
purse is hung his hat. After this his majesty the King 
betake himself again to all-highest-his place, on which 
the clergy, after making a reverence, leaves the room/' 
So with the feeding of the old men, which I have not 
patience to translate. Suffice it that, when they are 
placed, the King gives up his hat toithe head chamber- 
lain, and is led by the chief master of ceremonies to the 
table. One master of ceremonies leads Prince Luitpold 
to one table ; another master of ceremonies leads Prince 
Adalbert and Duke Max to another table: and each 
prince, after receiving his share of the food from the cham- 
berlains, hands it to the King. The King places meat, 
bread, and wine before each of the old men, then receives 



RULES OF COURT GRAMMAR. 



51 



his hat from the head chamberlain, and returns to all- 
highest-his apartment. 

Throughout this programme, as in court writings 
generally, the verb which is governed by the King's 
name is in the plural ; and while the King is in large 
capitals, the princes are in small. I think this is the 
only comment I need make. 



CHAPTER IV. 



"two kings of ■ 99 

Looking down the list of reigning sovereigns in tlie 
Almanack de Gotha, we find no less than five whose 
accession dates from 1848. One of these is King Maxi- 
milian the Second of Bavaria, who mounted the throne 
on the abdication of his father, King Ludwig. We may 
speak of the kings of that year, and the year following, 
as we would of the vintage of any given date, and we 
ought to know them by their flavour. They came 
to their thrones because their predecessors did not suit 
the people, or were unequal to the exigencies of the 
time. A decided constitutional smack is, therefore, ex- 
pected of them ; — the young and fruity taste of kings 
accepted by the people, instead of the dry, bodiless 
flavour of the old theory. 

I have a pamphlet of one hundred and two pages by 
me, in which the constitutional merits of King Maxi- 
milian are fully stated, and a list is given of the reforms 
he has introduced. It is everywhere granted, that he 
realises the present ideal of a king much better than 
his father. If he is not so prominent, either in the 
works he has executed or the words he has uttered, he 



KING MAX. 



53 



is much more popular with his subjects ; and it is not 
possible to look at him without recognising a good will 
and graciousness of demeanour, more pleasing than 
mental power and more befitting his station. He may 
not have the force of character necessary to take a de- 
cided line, yet he had the grace to yield to his people 
and the power to obey the law. He may not have 
uttered showy sentiments about a powerful Germany, 
or gratified the most contracted minds in his kingdom 
by constant snarls against France. But his saying, " I 
will have peace with my people/' is ..quoted whenever a 
warning has to be conveyed to a headstrong ruler, or 
whenever the highest of all compliments has to be paid 
to a constitutional king. 

It would not interest a large class in England to learn 
the details of King Max's reforms. Enough, that he 
has endeavoured in all ways to strengthen the principle 
of constitutional government; that public works have 
been developed ; the law has been simplified and im- 
proved. A small state like Bavaria, inclosed on all 
sides by other countries, and feeling none of those am- 
bitious stirrings which have prompted other small states 
to raise themselves to the rank of European powers, is 
necessarily restricted to domestic measures. The great 
thing we require of such a kingdom is, that it should 
remain in obscurity. If we hear anything of it, either 
the people are discontented, or the country is beginning 
to feel ambitious; and while the first case procures the 
sympathy of nations, the second invites the attention of 
foreign ministers. It is hard to say which is most un- 
pleasant for a government : — to have all other nations 



54 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



looking forward to a disturbance in its territory, or to 
feel the uneasy gaze of the gentlemen entrusted with 
the balance of power, fixed ever on its movements. But 
of the two, the first occurs the more often, and its 
recurrence would make us believers in the truth of 
Schiller's distich, " That the best state is to be known 
as the best woman is, — by nobody speaking of them." 
The few occasions on which Bavaria has been prominent 
of late years, have certainly not contributed to set her 
in a good light. Even now she shares with Austria the 
unfortunate fame of not having recognised the kingdom 
of Italy ; and from the first, her conduct towards the 
growing unity of that nation was characterised by the 
pettiest hostility. Diplomatic relations do not exist to 
this day between Turin and Munich ; while an Envoy 
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the King 
of Naples is still accredited to the court of Bavaria. It 
is said, and I sincerely trust it may be true, that King 
Max was opposed to the senseless clamour of 1859, and 
that his people, who plunged the most deeply into the 
folly of that time, actually longed for King Ludwig, who 
boasts his narrowness of nationality as if it were a 
virtue. Certain it is, that immediately after the peace 
King Max apologised to the Emperor of the French for 
having allowed Austrian troops to pass through Munich. 
But no apology could wipe out the remembrance of the 
blind enthusiasm with which the Austrian troops were 
received at the railway station, on their way to fight 
against liberty : the cheers, the drinking toasts, — to a 
speedy meeting of Austrians and Bavarians in Paris, — 
reminding us of the Prussian trooper knocking off the 



HISTORICAL STUDY. 



55 



necks of champagne bottles, in order to pledge that 
toast with fitting honours. 

The chief aim of King Max is said to be the eleva- 
tion of Munich in science to an equal height with that 
to which his father raised it in art. With this view 
some of the greatest scientific names have been settled 
in Munich during the present reign, and considerable 
sums are granted for scientific objects. The name of 
Liebig is a sufficient guarantee for the thorough pursuit 
of chemical science, and though other departments are 
not represented by men of equal reputation, the same 
principle is followed in the selection. In history much 
has been done, and much is still doing. By means of 
a commission appointed to superintend historical re- 
searches, important progress has been made, and as this 
commission is presided over by the chief living historian 
of Germany, Hanke, and numbers the greatest histo- 
rical names amongst its members, its results cannot fail 
to be important. Under its auspices all archives in 
Germany have been ransacked, and valuable materials 
have seen the light. The early periods of German his- 
tory are beginning to rival the latest days in the fulness 
of detail, in the strong gleams that are shed upon them. 
Inducement is given to the students of history to be- 
come writers of history by large prizes being offered for 
works on many subjects, instead of valuable discoveries 
being left to the more capricious encouragement of the 
public. And collections of records, chronicles of the 
free towns of the middle ages, or of the reigns of early 
emperors, are published with the aid of the sums 



56 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



granted by the king. In more general literature the 
royal encouragement is fast making Munich a centre of 
activity. Several of the more distinguished poets of 
this generation are settled in Munich, supported by the 
king from his privy purse, or employed at his sugges- 
tion in the university. Nor has this patronage a bad 
effect upon the tone of literature, as the encouragement 
of Louis XIV. had on his poets, and as King Ludwig's 
taste had on art. Each poet is left free to create as his 
imagination prompts him, instead of receiving a com- 
mand for a poem in this style. The only dissatisfaction 
expressed at the king's patronage, is that of the native 
Bavarians whenever a Protestant or a North German is 
a recipient. 

It is almost premature to speak of the public build- 
ings in the Maximilian's Strasse, although some of 
them are fast approaching completion. But though it 
is easy to weigh the merits and defects of an architec- 
tural design, it is difficult to predict the finished ap- 
pearance of a building from its unfinished state. The 
minor ornaments, which catch the eye when there is 
nothing else to rival them, may sink into insignificance, 
the light graceful tracery may be too flimsy, the statues 
may not group. The design of the National Museum 
is pleasing, but frequent looks at the unfinished building 
lead to a less favourable judgment. Of one thing, in- 
deed, the very highest terms may be employed — the 
new bridge over the Isar, at the end of the Maximilian's 
Strasse. Whether it be from its novelty, or from its 
usefulness, certain it is that the bridge is a more pleas- 



PASSING JUDGMENT. 



57 



ing object than most of King Lud wig's buildings, and 
one feels a charmed surprise at such a work being exe- 
cuted in Munich. 

Such constant reference is made throughout this 
volume to the name of King Ludwig, that the author 
finds it necessary to state his belief, and his impressions, 
at the outset. Passing allusions are apt to be contra- 
dictory. In one place the king is blamed with un- 
wonted severity, in another he is praised the more 
warmly to take off the sting of the censure. The most 
indulgent reader turns back, and compares the passages 
with a feeling of pity for the weakness of the writer, 
and perhaps ends by laying down the book as unre- 
liable. But while man is so contradictory in his nature, 
how can one's judgment be other than chequered? 
Who does not feel a slight disappointment when a 
writer goes out of his way to be consistent ? Macaulay 
cannot give James the faintest praise without a sarcastic 
qualification that neutralises its effects, nor can he 
blame William without half excusing his fault. If such 
reserve is needed for full-length portraits, how can a 
miniature present the truth of every line ? 

It is with great difficulty that any satisfactory verdict 
can be pronounced on King Ludwig. There is an en- 
tire dearth of reliable works upon him. Historians 
seem afraid to enter into details of his reign. At most 
you find facts stated with the utmost brevity, and no 
references by which they can be verified. Some writers 
dwell upon the order of his buildings, without any 
account of the source whence their expenses were taken. 
Others wander off into vague terms of adulation, talk- 

d 2 



58 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH, 



ing of a noble Maecenas, a liberal prince, an art-loving 
monarch. No doubt this is the easiest way of getting 
over the difficulties of King Ludwig's position ; but if 
the writers only knew the disgust inspired by such mis- 
placed epithets, they would pause in their servile career. 
Praise undeserved is satire in disguise, and even praise 
which is best deserved may seem satire when the object 
is plastered indiscriminately. But even those whose 
honesty is far above the temptations of flattery, show a 
remarkable reticence in treating of the ex-king. It 
would seem that German writers are too much engrossed 
in mediaeval history to feel the claim of the times that 
are just gone by, or that they have adopted the safe 
motto, " de vivis nil nisi bonum." 

A biography of King Ludwig, says a writer in the 
Saturday Review, would be a valuable preparation for 
a visit to Munich. Doubtless it would, if the mate- 
rials were accessible, and the biographer had the courage 
to use them. But it would seriously damage all pre- 
conceived opinions as to the character of the king, and 
might detract from the charm of his buildings. Stran- 
gers who see the miles of ornamental facade that he has 
erected, who compare the present town with pictures of 
the old town, and observe the impulse that has been 
given to Munich by its enlargement and embellishment, 
are apt to suppose that King Ludwig was an enlightened 
and popular monarch, and that the nation, having de- 
posed him in a fit of madness, has ever since sighed in 
vain for his restoration. I confess that I held this view 
when I first came to Munich, but since then I have 
found it utterly erroneous. With the examples of his- 



LOLA MONTEZ. 



59 



tory before our eyes, we ought not to attach so much 
importance to outward shows. If we are no longer 
dazzled by the sham halo of Louis XIV., and have learned 
that his reign was odious to his subjects, that his great 
enterprises drained their money, and his vast cam- 
paigns their blood ; if we have seen that the model of 
royalty was narrow and bigoted, why do we expect his 
humble imitators to be free from his failings ? It has 
been proved that the regenerators of capital cities were 
often destitute of taste, and that the most glorious 
reigns were times of national misery. Neither the ad- 
miration of tourists, nor the hasty sentence of panegy- 
rists, can afford the right means of judging a monarch ; 
his public acts are more than his buildings, and history 
must be influenced by the verdict of his people. 

Why is it that all politicians, all political authorities, 
are against King Ludwig? Why has his popularity 
grown up since his abdication ? It is well to represent 
his fall as the natural consequence of 1848, and of his 
infatuation for Lola Montez, but there must be deeper 
roots for it than the general excitement of Germany, 
and the disgust of his moral subjects at his subser- 
vience to an actress. To me the fact of a change being 
demanded by a people of such exemplary patience, speaks 
volumes against his rule. It may be said that his abdi- 
cation was the result of pique. But it must be remem- 
bered that he put off the crown with the words, " a new 
direction has been taken by the state, a direction quite 
at variance with that laid down by the constitution.^ 
The reactionary measures of his whole reign contrast un- 
favourably with the reforms that have been introduced 



60 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



under Maximilian, and though the son is considered 
weak when compared with his father, those who can 
remember the last reign do not seem desirous of re- 
verting to it. Nor can it be said with truth that King 
Ludwig had a choice between Lola Montez and his 
crown, and that he resigned the latter sooner than the 
former. I am afraid this romantic fidelity must be 
classed among the fables of history. As a matter of 
fact, there was an interval of a month between Lola's 
departure from Munich, and the king's abdication. It 
is possible that the king's partiality for the danseuse 
opened the eyes of his subjects, and brought them to 
take a more common sense view of the relations of a 
sovereign to his people. But they had much better 
grounds of complaint than Lola's influence, and they 
asked something more important than her removal. 
They wanted ministerial responsibility, the great check 
on kingly caprice, and they received it with the acces- 
sion of King Maximilian. They wanted absolute con- 
trol over the expenditure, not the nominal supervision 
they had hitherto enjoyed. Other things they wanted 
which were not demanded openly, and which are not 
even yet stated in writing. But speak to any liberal- 
minded man on the subject, and you will be astonished 
at his denunciations of the despotism of King Ludwig. 
Collect anecdotes from eye witnesses whose memory 
serves them, and though enough materials may not be 
provided for an impeachment at the bar of history, there 
will be enough to leave an unfavourable impression. 
In the ominous silence of contemporary authorities, 
such things have almost more than their due weight, 



FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. 



61 



and must continue to bias our judgment till the facts of 
the case are stated. 

u The establishment of monasteries, the favouring of 
ultramontane influences, the intolerance displayed to- 
wards non-catholics, the activity of the priestly party, 
which was almost all-powerful, went hand-in-hand with 
the suppression of free political movement, and the dis- 
regard of constitutional forms." This is the verdict 
that a reliable authority, distinguished for caution and 
moderation, passes on King Ludwig's reign. It may 
seem to some readers that very little censure is con- 
veyed in it; but at least it must be admitted, that 
these doings are not those of a liberal sovereign. 

It is strange that so few financial difficulties were ex- 
perienced by King Ludwig, considering the enormous 
sums he spent upon building. He began his reign by 
several important retrenchments, and seems to have 
earned the gratitude of the Chambers by giving them 
increased control over the expenditure. The lavishness 
of Max Joseph was so prodigious, and so entirely with- 
out result, that King Ludwig' s one-sided parsimony and 
ostentatious buildings would be welcomed as a change. 
Court life in Munich had been much gayer during the 
former reigns, and by suppressing public amusements a 
large sum out of the civil list was left over for public 
undertakings. Till 1825, there was an Italian opera in 
Munich, and Mozart composed his " Idomeneo " in 
Munich for the Italian theatre. The great show of 
buildings and pictures left by King Ludwig must, there- 
fore, be taken as a kind of equivalent for the gaiety 
which formerly prevailed at court, and to part of which 



62 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the public were admitted. The rulers of Bavaria seem 
always to have spent money in one way or another. 
King Ludwig has left more signs of his disbursements 
than any of his predecessors. 

At the same time, neither perfect agreement between 
the King and the Chambers, nor exactitude in financial 
statements, existed during his reign. The budget of 
Bavaria in 1846 differs little from that of 1862, and 
where it differs is more limited, except in the civil list. 
But we are told by a reliable authority that the official 
budgets of King Ludwig' s reign are not to be trusted. 
The specification was very imperfect ; and between 1830 
and 1840 great " savings^ were effected on useful works, 
streets, bridges, &c, and applied to artistic buildings. 
After the King's abdication an inquiry into his manage- 
ment of the finances was made by the Chambers ; and it 
was discovered that a great deal of public money had 
been spent without ever appearing in the financial state- 
ment. Twenty million florins, which had been econo- 
mised in various ways, had totally disappeared. King 
Ludwig was in consequence requested to pay back a 
million and a-half of florins to the public purse; and 
he found it advisable to comply with the request. The 
Bavarian politicians pride themselves justly on having 
achieved so great a work ; but it must be remembered 
that King Ludwig had nothing left of royalty but the 
title when he thought it expedient to yield. These facts 
are known and authenticated. But the work from which 
I take them, though it ventures to tell that Max Joseph 
made a present to his wife and daughters of the chief 
part of the indemnification-money received from France 



PRIVATE PURSE. 



63 



in 1815, does not hint at the financial crimes charged 
on King Ludwig. 

But if King Ludwig was thus lavish of the public 
money when his buildings were concerned, he was cer- 
tainly not sparing of his own. And if he denied the 
public those useful works on which public money should 
have been spent, his own life of frugality and self-denial 
may serve as an excuse. His own contributions to the 
embellishment of Bavaria amount to almost a million 
sterling. This sum does not include anything spent 
since his abdication ; it is, therefore, the result of twenty- 
three years alone. Since 1848 he has received an al- 
lowance of half a million of florins yearly, of which he 
has devoted almost a sixth part to buildings. The ar- 
chitectural aspect of most of his works is separately de- 
scribed, but the great fault of his whole new town of 
Munich must not be passed over. Partly sharing, partly 
encouraging the chief want of the Bavarian nature, King 
Ludwig was content to confine himself to ornament, and 
leave practical matters untouched. Many of his streets 
were built without an attempt at drainage ; and in the 
year 1862 whole streets are impassable while drains are 
being laid down in them. To him it is owing that the 
side pavements in the most fashionable street are mo- 
rasses, after the pattern of the walk in front of his own 
palace. I shall have occasion to show the entire want 
of practical ideas in Munich; and I cannot but trace 
the prevalence of useless ornament to King Ludwig' s 
example. He could not understand the beauty of fit- 
ness, as his people cannot understand it even now. Har- 
mony and agreement are the chief sources of much of 



64 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the picturesque effect of the finest buildings ; and great 
as may be the architectural merit of single works, it is 
nothing to the fitness of place which renders them per- 
fect. Unpractical as are the Italians of the present age, 
it is evident their ancestors were not without ideas of 
use as well as of beauty; and we do not sufficiently ap- 
preciate their practical intentions, while we wonder at 
their exquisite art. But the tendency of the world since 
then has been towards use, in too limited a degree, but 
not without regard for the beauties that lie hid beneath 
the practical surface. To copy the old Italians now, is 
to throw ourselves back; and even if we could catch 
their spirit, their meaning would escape us. King 
Ludwig's copies have not even caught the spirit. The 
disadvantages of an early time have been carefully 
preserved, but we look in vain for the exclusive sense 
of beauty that once attended those disadvantages. And 
the result is, that we grow sceptical about that often- 
quoted saying of Goethe's, — " We must do our utmost 
to encourage the Beautiful, because the useful encou- 
rages itself." This saying was King Ludwig's guiding 
principle ; and we see to what it has led him. By en- 
couraging the Beautiful he has driven out one of the 
chief elements of beauty ; and the useful has not the 
feeblest root in his dominions. 

The want of all use in King Ludwig's creations is 
generally admitted even by his warmest admirers. But 
when the king's statue was inaugurated, the burgo- 
master of Munich thought it incumbent in him to add a 
practical leaf to the usual artistic garland. He gave 
the king credit for the canal between the Danube and 



ROYAL REFORMS. 



65 



the Main, for the railway communications of Bavaria, 
and even for the existence of the Zollverein. Some 
faithful admirers of royalty will always hold that every 
good work, and every perfect work, is from the king ; 
and this belief is very general in Munich. King 
Ludwig has encouraged it by commemorating his two 
immediate predecessors as founders of the English 
garden. When Otho was turned out of Greece the 
Munich papers asked indignantly how the material 
welfare of Greece under Otho could have grown up 
but for the king? when all the rest of Europe con- 
sidered it the best proof of the vitality of the Greek 
nation that it could thrive under the burden of a stupid 
monarch. How often we see kings opposing reforms 
with all their might, and only granting them when the 
choice lies between a change of policy and a change of 
dynasty. Who would credit George the Third with 
the freedom of the American colonies ? Who would 
assign to George the Fourth the merit of Catholic 
emancipation ? It is true that the first railway opened 
in Germany was the line from Nuremberg to Furth, 
and that the commercial union between Bavaria and 
Wurtemberg gave the impulse to the Zollverein. But 
does the merit of these undertakings rest solely with 
King Ludwig? The point must be reserved for the 
decision of history. 

Baron Thiebault has vaunted the literary acquire- 
ments of the royal family of Bavaria, and King Lud- 
wig's poetry has found its way into Murray. More 
than this, it has been translated into English, though, 
to judge from the remarks of natives, it stood more in 



66 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



need of being translated into German. But King 
Ludwig's poetic reputation has suffered very much by 
the excessive bitterness with which Heine has attacked 
him; and as Heine is read over all the world. King 
Ludwig' s neglect of him has been severely punished. 
If it be true that the king banished the poet from 
Munich, the biting sarcasms Heine has uttered against 
King Ludwig and his favourites would be explained. 
It is so difficult for strangers to understand the ground 
of partisan hostilities, it is so easy for the most vigorous 
mind to be misled into exaggeration of violence by 
political opinions, and it is impossible for natives to 
take the impartial point of view that comes so natural 
to a stranger. Some may think that my judgment of 
King Ludwig has been too much influenced by the 
censure of his foes, and I am almost conscious of 
having inclined to the unfavourable side without giving 
him sufficient credit for his really meritorious actions. 
But my task has been far from easy. I have en- 
deavoured to steer between the exaggerations of both 
sides without surrendering my own opinions. If I 
have not given the king credit for the many charitable 
works that have been reported to me, I have passed 
over unfavourable anecdotes with an excess of scru- 
pulousness which will hardly be relished by the lovers 
of gossip. Man's natural tendency is to lay more stress 
on anecdotes than on unsupported judgments; and 
though the anecdote may be much exaggerated, it is 
seldom quite unfounded. But who can pay any regard 
to ex cathedra dogmas delivered by men who have 
either an obvious motive in avoiding plain facts, or 



A NATIVE VIEW. 



67 



whose ignorance of facts is equalled by rashness of in- 
ference? The predominance of such verdicts on King 
Ludwig must have a worse effect on us than the anec- 
dotes current in Munich, or even the denunciations of 
Heine. Did not Gibbon say that he never read an 
ex parte statement without being inclined to take the 
opposite side ? 

To all attacks on King Ludwig the inhabitants of 
Munich have a simple reply, like that of Sir Oliver 
Surface to the objections against his nephew : — But he 
has made Munich what it is. And no doubt this 
answer is unanswerable. Yet we have only to look 
back to the time of Pope to see that the faults of the 
new town of Munich have not the excuse of novelty. 
There is no lack of excellent translators in the literary 
world of Munich, and if any one wishes to convey a 
most appropriate lesson, he has only to translate the 
fourth of the Moral Essays. The noble lines that 
Pope addresses to his country are with a few slight 
changes applicable to the present subject, the more 
that only one of his precepts seems to have been 
adopted by the embellisher of Munich : — 

"Bid harbours open, public ways extend; 
Bid temples ivorthier of the God ascend; 
Bid the broad arch the dangerous flood contain, 
The mole projected break the roaring main ; 
Back to his bounds their subject sea command, 
And roll obedient rivers through the land : 
These honours peace to happy Britain brings ; 
These are imperial works, and worthy kings." 



CHAPTER V. 



PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 



It is curious to remark the indifference felt by residents 
in cities for the sights and attractions around them. If 
the British Museum were opened on Sundays how many 
Londoners would frequent it ; how many go under the 
present system ? Are the Florentines regular attendants 
at the Pitti, or the Romans at the Borghese ? One ac- 
cuses the Munich people of bad taste, because they are 
ignorant of the collections which have raised their town 
to the rank of a show-place, but towns which have far 
finer collections are as liable to the reproach. It may be 
said that in the time of Leo the Tenth the population 
of Rome cared more for the art that was being born 
under their eyes than their descendants care for it now, 
and that Munich under King Ludwig ought not to be 
compared with the Rome of to-day, but with the Rome 
of artist activity. And there is little doubt that the 
Italians from whose own bosom the glories of Florence 
and Venice arose, must have felt a vivid interest in the 
progress they witnessed, and that their sympathy must 
have powerfully reacted on the artists. But Munich 
has the proud pre-eminence of being indifferent in the 



ART AND INDUSTRY. 



69 



present, while other cities are merely indifferent to their 
past. 

As a resident I am not so well versed in the lions of 
Munich as many sedulous strangers are, and the subjects 
to which I devote myself chiefly in this volume are those 
which come under the cognizance of residents. But my 
book would be very incomplete without a full survey of 
the public buildings and the chief paintings contained in 
them. For without these important contributions to art 
no one would care to read about Munich, and if it were 
not for the artist reputation of the city there would be 
no surprise at its shortcomings. The faults and failings 
of domestic architecture would not be worth touching on 
if the public architecture of the town had not a name 
throughout Europe, nor would one attempt to gauge 
King Ludwig's claims to distinction if a certain dis- 
tinction were not allotted him already. Who would 
complain of a market town in England as being behind 
the age ? In writing of Munich I always keep in view 
the disparity between the fame enjoyed by the town as 
a centre of art — a modern Athens, and the actual 
state of its inhabitants, its trade, and its life. Strangers 
who pass through Munich every summer miss the very 
serious faults engendered by King Ludwig's attempt at 
forcing, and those not yet eradicated by the course of 
time which has been so powerful with ourselves. It is 
by their flying impressions that the mistaken judgments 
we hear pronounced on Munich have been formed, and 
from these mistaken judgments the recoil to over harsh 
censure is natural and unavoidable. My attempt has 
been to steer a middle course between the two. 



70 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



On no point would a difference of opinion be more 
likely to arise than on the public buildings of Munich. 
A casual traveller who is not a student of architecture 
and does not much care for old buildings, would very 
possibly be enthusiastic in his praise of King Ludwig's 
erections, while a severe architectural judge would con- 
demn them without mercy. A lover of the modern might 
find the palace in Munich less gloomy and forbidding 
than the Pitti, the Hall of the Marshals certainly lighter 
and more graceful than the Loggie of Orcagna. I once 
met an American at Milan who was not much struck by 
Raphael's Sposalizio, and who found that the Dusseldorf 
school of painters gave more idea of religious feeling, 
and did not leave so much to the imagination as these 
old masters. I was once studying Guidons celebrated 
portrait of Beatrice Cenci in the Barberini palace, when 
a party of English came in and after looking at it for a 
moment remarked unanimously, " Well, I think I prefer 
the copies." Much as one would be ashamed of uttering 
such a sentiment, it is the natural expression of the 
early stage of artistic feeling. We have probably gone 
through it ourselves at a time we do not care to remem- 
ber, and have preached up Landseer as vastly superior to 
Titian. Moreover those travellers who go from Germany 
to Italy, labour under the same disadvantage as those 
who know a painting from an engraving. It is hard to 
look at a picture which you have seen well engraved 
without a feeling of disappointment. The clearness and 
cleanness of the fine lines do not prepare you for the 
faded colours, and clouded expression. So when you 
pass from the clean and airy copies of Munich, to the 



EXTREMES MEET. 



71 



stern and gloomy originals in Italy, the first impression 
is in favour of modern things whose beauties lie on the 
surface, and you regret the trouble you must take in 
studying the ancient and eliciting their merits. 

Thus, I conceive, the reputation of Munich has grown. 
This explanation of its fascinating powers can alone ex- 
cuse the raptures that are uttered upon it. When we 
come to consider its merits impartially, we find much 
that is faulty ; and the raptures we have heard expressed 
often hinder us from apportioning praise as it is deserved. 
It seems almost ludicrous to have the figure of Bavaria 
held up to admiration as the finest colossal statue in the 
world, when one knows its defects ; and the exaggerated 
praise does not allow any compromise in favour of its 
real merits. When the three Greek buildings in dif- 
ferent styles forming three sides of a square, are pre- 
sented as an example to our no thing-but- Gothic archi- 
tects, one is almost tempted to deny the beauty of the 
only beautiful one of the three. When we hear that 
the multitude of styles in Munich is owing to the catholic 
taste of King Ludwig, not to the inventions of architects, 
we cannot but remember that some of the chief buildings 
were disfigured by the alterations the King dictated. 
And when we are told that Munich is the cradle of art, 
we forget all the excellence that at other times we are 
so ready to allow, and reply that the saying is true so 
far, as the art of Munich is essentially babyish. It is 
wrong to form such extreme judgments; but one ex- 
tremity necessarily leads to another. 

It is hard to know which building should be placed 
first in an examination of Munich. Murray puts the 



72 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



churches at the beginning ; but I am inclined to think 
churches are not the first objects of a stranger's visit. 
I would rather begin with the Glyptothek, partly be- 
cause it was the first of King Ludwig's buildings, partly 
because it has real merits, and is the best work of Klenze. 
At present the Glyptothek is seen to great disadvan- 
tage. The building opposite is in Corinthian style, and 
stands so much higher that it attracts the eye. The 
Propylaen, which stands between the two, is of a sort of 
Doric, and though somewhat massive and imposing as 
you come close under the portal, is heavy and shapeless 
as a whole. The Glyptothek, on the other hand, is a 
really admirable work, one of the few modern buildings 
in the Greek style that give any pleasure to the eye. 
There are days in the summer when the white columns 
glow with southern lustre, and when the climate does 
not seem inappropriate to the building. Such a temple 
in England would, long ere this, have become dingy 
and dreary, like those gloomy works of pseudo-Greek 
that are such powerful promoters of dyspepsia in Lon- 
don. But the high position, the hot sun, and the clear 
air of Munich, maintain the whiteness without which 
Grecian architecture is a delusion ; and the Glyptothek, 
which was built before King Ludwig's accession, remains 
unimpaired long after his descent from the throne. One 
warning, however, must be addressed to its admirers, — 
not to go round the building. The back is perfectly 
odious, having a window on each side of its portico; 
and a window in a Greek temple is an abomination that 
the architect might have been expected to avoid. In 
all other respects the Glyptothek is praiseworthy, and 



ANCIENT SCULPTURE. 



73 



well adapted to its purpose. Of the collection, I need 
not speak at any length ; and the frescoes I have set 
apart for the chapter on their creator. The full descrip- 
tion of the statues in Murray, and the detailed quota- 
tions from Westmacott, would make my task superfluous, 
even if I were as versed in history as the one, and in 
aesthetic criticism as the other. I will merely allude to 
a paper on the Barberini Faun, read by a German Pro- 
fessor, in which a different view is taken of the date of 
that statue and the school to which it belongs. Professor 
Westmacott attributes it, if not to Scopas or Praxiteles, 
at least to a scarcely inferior scholar ; and in this judg- 
ment he coincides with many of the earlier critics. 
Schorn and Waagen both assign it to the same period, 
Waagen finding a close similarity between it and the 
Theseus and Ilyssus. Others, however, had already 
sought a later date for its production, some bringing 
it down to Nero ; and Professor Von Liitzow attributes 
it to the Roman- Alexandrine period. His grounds are 
ably stated in a paper read before the meeting of 
Philologers and Orientalists at Augsburg, in September, 
1862. He rests his assumption chiefly on the absence 
of all similar subjects in ancient Greek sculpture, and of 
all literary description of similar statues. The only work 
whose treatment at all coincides with that of the Bar- 
berini Faun is a bronze discovered at Herculaneum, 
and this bronze is generally attributed to Roman art. 
Only two allusions to sleeping satyrs occur in ancient 
literature: one in the Anthology, the other in Pliny. 
Moreover, the naturalism of the Faun, the eminent ana- 
tomical knowledge, the exquisite rendering of drunken 

E 



74 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



sleep, would conspire to place the statue at a later time 
than that at which idealism, and the thirst for pure 
beauty, prevailed. Nor is this the only argument; a 
very powerful one remains. The Faun is lying on a 
skin, and Greek sculpture would almost certainly have 
made this the skin of a panther. But the sculptor of 
this statue has chosen a wolFs skin, which at once gives 
us the connection with Rome, and with the Lupercus of 
the Roman forests. 

The English guide-book regrets, and English travel- 
lers are inclined to follow the example, that the iEgina 
sculptures, which form one of the chief glories of the 
Glyptothek, were not secured for the British Museum. 
During my stay in Munich, I cannot sympathise with 
the regret ; and I am disposed to think that the statues 
are more appreciated by the travelling English, and by 
a greater number of visitors, than they would be in 
London. It seems somewhat selfish to grudge Munich 
her one treasure, without which the Glyptothek would 
be poor indeed; while we have the friezes of the Par- 
thenon and the unrivalled collection of casts at Syden- 
ham. By the possession of these early works, the sculp- 
ture gallery in Munich stands on the same footing as 
the picture gallery. The statues of the culminating pe- 
riod are few, and there are fewer still of extraordinary 
merit. The iEgina marbles form an introduction to 
these few, and the introduction is fuller and more valu- 
able than the body of the work. It must always be 
considered King Ludwig's highest claim, that he formed 
the present collection ; and the Glyptothek, both build- 
ing and contents, gives a better opinion of his taste than 



THE PALACE. 



75 



would be formed without it. And yet it is worthy of 
remark^ that during the whole week of the popular fes- 
tivity in October, when the population of Bavaria flocks 
in to Munich, the Glyptothek is closed. Evidently, the 
King has no very high opinion of the taste of the people 
for whom his capital was decorated, or of the amount of 
intellectual progress his improvements have wrought. 
According to a return that I copied from one of the 
newspapers, the expenses of the Glyptothek amounted 
to £9,246 for building, and £16,463 for paintings and 
sculpture. Murray states that the iEgina marbles were 
bought for £6,000, — an agent from the English Govern- 
ment being on his way with an offer of £8,000. 

It has ever been considered right that strangers in Mu- 
nich shouldseethePalace, andldo notsuppose the remarks 
I am about to make will dissuade any one from following 
the tradition. For some time past those parts of the 
Palace that seem most attractive have not been shown, 
the rich chapel, the treasury, and the apartments of the 
King and Queen. The rooms on the ground floor with 
great frescoes from the Nibelungenlied, the large hall in 
the other part of the building with frescoes from the life 
of Charlemagne, Barbarossa and Budolph of Hapsburg, 
the throne room with its colossal statues, and the ball 
room are shown, and unfortunately I can speak of them 
all from experience. It is interesting to read in a guide- 
book of the palace fitted up, not after the usual manner 
of palaces, but in an admirable style of decoration, espe- 
cially when you have once been dragged round an un- 
meaning series of rooms with heavy beds and railings 
before them, and have been lectured on the wash hand- 



76 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



stand of the Grand Monarque, or the chair on which 
Louis XV. used to change his shirt. But when you go 
the rounds of large rooms still less intended for life than 
the show rooms of Versailles, and yawn before fresco 
after fresco, each one of which has to be interpreted in 
all its details by the enthusiastic guide, you come to 
admit that all palaces are vanity, and you are humiliated 
at having succumbed to an ignoble curiosity. I have 
known people who found that their punishment was 
greater than they could bear, and who had to make an 
ignominious retreat in the midst of the guide's harangue. 
Wearisome indeed are these great hard pictures of early 
times, of dark ages on which the painters shed no light. 
I found the floor of the ball room more attractive and 
more artistically composed than the transcendental 
frescoes of the adjoining halls, just as a small court in 
the middle of the Palace with bronzes and a garden is 
more worthy of admiration than all the Konigsbau or 
Festsaalbau of orthodox wonder. 

You may observe from the outside with some surprise 
how the new parts of the Palace dovetail into the old. 
Beginning in front you have the stone chipped and ham- 
mered into the appearance of massive unhewn blocks, 
and as you go round the side you come to the bare old 
walls, in every way a striking contrast. You must take 
each part for what it is worth, for there is no possible 
harmony, no attempt at a whole. The building resem- 
bles nothing so much as an old statue, pieced and re- 
stored. One of the statues in the Glyptothek was found 
in a stone-mason's yard, provided with head and hands 
by its temporary owner. It would be unjust to call the 



RESTORATION. 



77 



architect of the new Palace a stone-mason and still more 
unjust to compare the old Palace to the son of Niobe. 
But if the King had desired Thorvaldsen in restoring the 
iEgina sculptures to put a head of the time of Praxiteles 
and arms of the Roman period on one of the ancient 
figures, an effect similar to that of the Palace might 
have been produced. The sculptor would not have 
obeyed such a command, and in restoring the iEgina 
marbles he has followed the style of the time which pro- 
duced them. Why could not the architect do the same? 
If a new palace must be built could it not be built anew? 
At present the building has the appearance of a palim- 
psest. It is certainly not one of those works that do 
honour to an architect. If such as this were the only 
buildings of Klenze he would hardly deserve the name. 
But the Glyptothek and Pinacothek may be placed 
against those in which he seems to have followed too 
faithfully the instructions of his patron. 

I have thought it my duty to study several of the 
pictures which are representative of Munich art, that I 
might not have to dismiss the subject too summarily, 
and might not judge rashly without full power of deter- 
mining. But I confess I had not patience to do this 
with the pictures in the Palace. Had their painter oc- 
cupied the same position as Cornelius, I should have 
forced myself to have examined his works as I forced 
myself to examine the works of Cornelius. 

The entire expenses of building the palace, including 
the court chapel amounted to £350,000. The court 
chapel is perhaps the most perfect part of the whole, and 
in richness of decoration, solemnity, and appropriateness 



78 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of ornament, resembles the churches built by wealthy 
religious orders rather than those built by Kings who 
have so many calls on their purses, and who are engaged 
in so many works as King Ludwig. 

Before passing to the Ludwig's Strasse, which was 
chiefly built by Gartner, I will mention briefly the 
other works of Klenze. The Pinacothek must have 
a place by itself ; not for its external grandeur, but for 
questions of its contents. And when the Pinacothek 
and Glyptothek have been disposed of, the others are 
neither important nor blameless. The ministry of war, 
and the palace of Duke Max, in the Ludwig's Strasse, 
the Odeon, and the palace (once called the Leuchten- 
berg,) which balances it, the arcade of the Post Office 
over against the Residenz, the arcades of the Hofgar- 
ten, the royal theatre, are the most prominent, and none 
of these call for decided praise. It is admitted by Ger- 
man critics, that in spite of the great decorative powers 
shown by Klenze, and his wide knowledge of architec- 
tural history, his works are wanting in true genius, 
having been almost invariably built on the model of 
some Greek or Italian construction. At the same time 
he is reproached for not observing the rules that should 
guide an architect in the arrangement of interiors, espe- 
cially with regard to the position of staircases. But in no 
building has he exposed himself to more blame than in his 
last, the Propylaen. This gate was erected by King Lud- 
wig after he had ceased to be king, in honour of the 
foundation of the Grseco-Bavarian dynasty,* and it seems 
that its failure is meant to typify the abdication of the 

* It was not finished till after the fall of the same. 



CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED. 



79 



monarch, and its mixture of styles the inappropriate- 
ness of King Otho's rule. It has a portico east and 
west, with Doric columns, and the two porticos are 
joined by Corinthian columns. On each side of the 
portico is a cumbrous and unmeaning wing, pierced with 
windows and doors, and on the line of roof that runs 
from wing to wing, over the porticos, are sham lion's 
heads, like the Edinburgh samples of Mr. Ruskin. 
The general effect of the building is heavy and clumsy, 
and the sculpture placed on it is far too small to bear 
any proportion to the whole. As you near the portico^ 
indeed, there is a certain grandeur in it, but seen from a 
distance the grandeur vanishes in the disproportionate 
dimensions. In a practical point of view the gate is 
even more faulty than in an artistic. There are two 
side passages for carriages, the centre is reserved for 
royal carriages, and there are steps along the centre for 
foot passengers. The pedestrians have thus to cross the 
carriage way twice in order to get through, have to ex- 
pose themselves twice to the risk of being run over, 
and have, strictly speaking, no footpath at all. When I 
add that the gate was opened before it was finished, to 
let the statue of King Ludwig pass through, and was 
then shut again from the public, after being solemnly 
inaugurated and handed over to them for their use, I 
have sufficiently spoken of the new building. The 
Burgomaster of Munich, receiving it from the master 
of ceremonies of King Ludwig, promised that it should 
always be kept by the town in the same state in which 
the town received it ; fortunately the promise was made 
without considering the state in which the town received 
it, and the gate was not condemned to remain in com- 



80 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



plete to the end of time. Allowing, however, for all these 
drawbacks to the reputation of Klenze, one must admit 
that he has deserved well of Munich by two, at least, 
of his buildings, and one is glad that his desert is to be 
recognised so as to commemorate his name. In a part 
of the town where several new streets are being laid 
out, the magistrate determined that two streets should 
bear the names of celebrated artists, and should meet 
in a rond-point, which should be decked with their 
statues. One of these streets was to be called the 
Cornelius Strasse, the other the Klenze Strasse. The 
idea is good, and the execution of ifc will probably tend 
more to perpetuate the name of Klenze, than some of 
the buildings I have just characterised. 

" There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 
O earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 
There where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea." 

And the poefs words may with slight changes be 
applied to the Ludwig's Strasse. Not that the dull 
unfrequented street may be said to roar, for your steps 
sometimes echo unpleasantly with a sound of loneliness 
as you walk along it. Nor can the site be supposed to 
have been washed by the central sea, at least within 
living recollection. The stillness of the central land is 
however sufficient to keep up the antithesis. There is a 
series of curious pictures in the new Pinacothek which 
seems to be passed over too quickly by visitors, but 
which would furnish inquirers with a singular idea of 
Munich before the time of King Ludwig. These pic- 



THE OLD TOWN. 81 

tures occupy the tenth and eleventh cabinets, and are 
views taken from various points and reproducing various 
parts of the town. One gives the old corn market, and 
a number of vignettes of the old towers and places 
around. Another shows a formal old garden that used 
to stand somewhere in the position of the present Hof- 
garten, and that bore the old title of the reigning house. 
Another shows the old riding school, another the old 
Palace Square, with the low old-fashioned part of the 
building which is now replaced by the Pitti, and the 
hideous yellow and blue side of the old Post Office. 
Where now the Hall of the Marshals is was once an inn, 
with a sign of the Virgin and Child high up on the front. 
The old Schwabing gate was just outside the Theatiner 
Kirche ; a high bank of grass topped with railings rose 
on one side of the road, and waggons are seen in the 
picture peacefully driving along the present Odeon's 
Platz. Where now the Maximilian's Strasse runs out 
of the place in front of the palace, was formerly a dis- 
cordant mixture of little houses, a narrow irregular 
alley ran in one direction, and the ground was uneven, 
bulging in one part, and falling in another. Gates and 
old towers guarded the inner town from the palace and 
the post office, as if the citizens were afraid of royal 
encroachments, and suspected the treasonableness of 
letters. At the back of the palace, where now is the 
Court Chapel, and at the side where now the Palladian 
wing is devoted to festivals, was a deep moat turned into 
various gardens, and laid out irregularly with beds and 
trees, walls running round and bridges across to the 
palace. Little cottages and fragments of old buildings 

e 2 



82 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



rise up capriciously, many covered with ivy, from the 
middle of which their round windows can scarcely peep^ 
slanting roofs run up and are fastened on to the palace, 
and the desolate effect is wrought out with gables, 
towers, walls, wooden staircases outside the buildings, 
and the lawless growth of vegetation wherever it can 
strike root. The quaint departed fashions wander about 
these pictures, ricketty cabriolets, that have long been 
consigned to the unknown limbo of their kind, drive 
down the uneven streets, or stand for hire. 

One must examine these pictures to see what Munich 
was before King Ludwig, and where his new additions 
have been built in. The study is highly curious, and 
one sees that the metamorphosis must at first have 
promised to be a difficult undertaking. Anything more 
strangely ugly than many of these old buildings can 
hardly be conceived, and the taste of the people may 
be judged from a sight of what they were contented to 
keep. There was nothing here to build upon, and yet 
an entire demolition could hardly be contemplated. 
When, therefore, we object to the present Palace, we 
must be careful not to look at the pictures of the old; 
and when we rail at the dreariness of the Ludwig's 
Strasse, we deserve to be reminded of what it has re- 
placed. The great want of the street is the more 
remarkable, that in almost all other towns it has been 
remedied, the want of shops. For in no other town 
would an important street be filled with public build- 
ings exclusively, a class of building the least able to 
impart life and cheerfulness to the space in front of it. 
There are certainly some fine works in the Ludwig's 



THE CHURCH OF ST. LUDWIG. 



88 



Strasse, which give one a higher opinion of Gartner 
than of Klenze. The Royal Library has, I think, more 
solid merits than either the Glyptothek or the Pina- 
cothek; in grandeur it is certainly not second to the 
latter,, and it transcends both in originality. The Lud- 
wig's Church, I am given to understand, was altered 
from the architect's design by the patron of the street,, 
and the Hall of Marshals also made higher than was 
intended. This may explain the want of fair propor- 
tion in the one, and the weedy appearance, the neces- 
sity of iron supports in the other. Perhaps the want 
of proportion explains the unpleasing effect of the 
Ludwig's Kirche, so far as an effect can be explained. 
Certain it is that one derives no sense of satisfaction 
from looking at the church, and it is difficult to under- 
stand the reason of one's disappointment. I have re- 
served the frescoes, which are the only particulars 
worth mention, for my chapter on their artist,, and I 
need not linger in the unattractive building. One only 
point, however, should be touched on here with regard 
to Cornelius' "Last Judgment/' to correct a mistake 
in Murray's Handbook. "The features of the ugly 
creature who crawls beneath Satan's feet resemble those 
of Goethe." There are two figures under Satan's feet, 
Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his lord; and Segestes, 
who in revenge for the seduction of his daughter by 
Arminius, warned Varus of his designs, and was there- 
fore considered to have betrayed his country. J ust in 
front of Satan a figure is kneeling, which is remarkably 
like Goethe, though I believe it represents one of the 
seven capital sins. It would be curious to know if the 



84 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



painter really intended to pourtray the greatest man 
that the literature of his nation can boast under the 
mask of a capital sin, and, if so, what motives impelled 
him? But it is no longer necessary for English 
travellers to endeavour to make out the features of 
Goethe in one of the bearded couple crawling under 
Satan's feet. 

The church of St. Boniface and the church in the 
Au are two sights that no visitor should miss, and are 
two of the worthiest contributions of King Ludwig. 
The painted windows in the second are quite unique, 
presenting clear and enjoyable pictures instead of the 
imitations of medievalism that go under the name of 
stained glass. I do not care to enter into a discussion 
about the sesthetic mission of windows, whether they 
should be pictures or no ; I am content to admire the 
beauty of these without answering for my opinion in a 
court of art. The paintings in the Basilica of St. Boni- 
face are so generally admired that there may be little 
merit in recording a vote with the majority. But 
one can hardly refrain from entering into the reverence 
and religious feeling that characterise them, and that 
place them so fully in harmony with the grandeur and 
solemnity of the church. So many feelings enter into 
the mind that criticism is disarmed, and the verdict 
against modern religious art is robbed of its severity. 
This Boniface church must be taken as an ample set- 
off against the illiberal side of King Ludwig's religion. 
Some bigotry in behalf of his faith my be allowed to 
one who has shown the bright side of his zeal in such a 
splendid monument, such a testimony to the sincerity 



OTHER CHURCHES. 



85 



of his faith. Nor is the painter who executed the 
works to be less commended than the sovereign who 
commanded them. The departure of the saint from 
Netley Abbey would alone entitle him to the praise of 
feeling, so charingly bestowed on his contemporaries ; 
and many English visitors carry away that picture in 
their minds as the one link between Munich and their 
native country. 



CHAPTER VI. 



PICTURE GALLERIES. 



As a general rule, the picture galleries of Europe are fit 
for anything, save pictures. It must be allowed that 
they were mostly built for other purposes. The first 
owners, when they contemplated the admission of pic- 
tures into rooms which were to serve for residence, never 
intended to form such large collections as were made by 
their descendants. And the collections once made, the 
claims of art-students became so pressing, that the halls 
originally intended for private use had to pass to the 
public. By degrees, the encroachments of lovers of pic- 
tures become greater, and the inhabitants are thrust out 
of their best rooms during a large portion of each day ; 
or the prince is driven to build himself another palace, 
and leave his old one to become a gallery. One cannot 
of course compel a prince to build a new house for the 
pictures and to occupy the old one himself; nor can one 
expect the heir of a fine house to build a gallery ex- 
pressly suited for artistic study. But it must be said, 
that both palaces and houses are generally ill-suited for 
the exhibition of a crowd of pictures. 

There are certain architectural requirements in a pic- 



THE TEST OF USE. 



87 



ture gallery which are almost certain to be neglected in 
a palace. A human occupant wants light distributed 
equally about his room. But a picture is greedy, and 
wants all the light to be thrown upon itself. Again ; 
one man likes lofty rooms, especially if he lives in a 
warm climate : another likes his rooms low and compact, 
if he has a taste for snugness. But high rooms would 
be useless for small pictures, and a large picture might 
not find place to stand in a low room. Your treasures 
may be invisible, if you are chary of glass ; if you are 
lavish of it, the streams of light may cross and obscure 
the picture, by over-brilliance. All these objections 
may be found in full force in most of the public galleries ; 
but in Munich, where a building was erected especially 
for the pictures, we may suppose that they will not 
apply. Murray's guide-book says with all possible con- 
fidence, " In addition to the praise of having constructed 
a beautiful edifice, Klenze deserves that of having formed 
the most convenient and appropriate receptacle for paint- 
ings in Europe." Beautiful edifice is not too strong a 
term to employ in describing the old Pinacothek. It is 
certainly a noble building. The entrance at the side 
prevents many from duly appreciating it; and it is not 
till you get the view of the front that you can judge it 
as its merits deserve. From this point the effect is 
truly grand and harmonious; the massive look of the 
whole building is a worthy product of the style selectee!, 
seconded by the tone of the material. Built in the style 
of a Roman palace, the Pinacothek does not remind you 
of any particular model, as its architectural merits ex- 
ceed those of any possible model. But this praise can 



88 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



only be bestowed on the inside. The architect had no 
excuse for repeating the faults that detract from the 
utility of picture galleries generally, for his building was 
avowedly intended to be a receptacle for pictures. In 
his desire for show, he has entirely neglected the archi- 
tectural requirements of a gallery, while acknowledging 
their existence. The skylight system of lighting would 
deserve praise, if the ceilings were not so high that the 
light is wasted upon them. And the large halls, which 
look grand enough when compared with one's own 
height, and which answer to the promise of the exte- 
rior, are quite inappropriate for their purpose. Some 
pictures must be hung so high that they can scarcely 
be seen, even with an opera glass ; and the lower ones 
are too far from the light to be shown advantageously. 
It is true, that some of the pictures in the collection are 
so large that they require a room of some size to con- 
tain them ; but I doubt if there is a picture in the world 
that needs the height of the Pinacothek. To whose 
charge are these faults to be laid, if not to the architect's ? 

Yet, if the hanging committee had not seconded Klenze 
so ably, these faults would not have been so evident. 
The light might have been bad, as it is in so many gal- 
leries, and yet we should not have looked up at the 
height of the rooms to explain it. But the committee, 
or the director, or whoever he be on whom the hanging 
devolves, has called our attention to the architect's 
blunder. In the large rooms the pictures are hung at 
an inordinate height; and even in the cabinets, the 
bottom of the frame, not th'e picture itself, is on the 
line of the eye. The result is, that many of the works 



PUBLIC WANTS. 



89 



of art in the gallery pass entirely unnoticed. It were 
well if all the inferior works were hung out of sight, so 
as to give all the lower space to the better ones; but 
this is not the principle selected. The second, third, 
and fifth rooms, are taken up chiefly with inferior works, 
many of them honoured with excellent places; while 
the early Germans, which form the strength of the gal- 
lery, are crowded into the first room, one above another. 
That it may not be thought I am making the charge 
rashly, or from any spirit of contradiction, unfairness, 
or spleen, I will add, that many of the facts communi- 
cated in this chapter have already been stated by art- 
critics of position and reputation in Munich. Having 
no pretensions to that power of assigning pictures to 
their true painters, that belongs to some modern judges 
in a peculiar degree, I have thought it better to consult 
the chief authorities and repeat their conclusions, than 
to attempt any independent decision. At the same 
time, I have examined the charges made against the 
gallery myself, and have resorted frequently to my pri- 
vate judgment before endorsing the sentences of others. 

The badness of the hanging and the unfitness of the 
large rooms cannot fail to strike the most casual ob- 
server. But many of the faults which are most obnoxi- 
ous to resident visitors are unknown to the majority of 
passing travellers. On cloudy days, says an artist 
living in Munich, it is almost impossible to see any- 
thing in the middle rooms; but cloudy days are un- 
known in summer. The want of seats in the large 
rooms* renders the gallery doubly fatiguing to those 

# A few have been added since this was written. 



90 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



who are seeing all the sights of the town in a couple of 
days, and contrasts unfavourably with the National 
Gallery or the centre rooms of the Louvre. But in 
winter the seats would have a perfect sinecure, for any 
one who sat down five minutes would be frozen. There 
seems to be no attempt to heat the Pinacothek, and the 
result is that it is rendered useless during winter. I 
have been there when the thermometer marked two or 
three degrees only above zero, and found all study im- 
possible. In a cold climate, large rooms with stone 
floors are only accessible in summer, as the architect 
might reasonably have foreseen. But there is every 
facility for heating them, if the directors would only go 
to the expense of buying wood. 

These evils most affect the public, and perhaps they 
are the only evils by which the public thinks itself 
affected. Their result is, that the public stays away. 
If the public studied the pictures attentively other 
faults would have their influence, but in the absence 
of the public the other faults act only on students and 
beginners. To them they are perhaps more serious 
than the want of seats, and light and warmth, for they 
may have a paralyzing influence on the whole life of an 
artist. These faults are many and serious, they strike 
at the root of all art, and there is not the smallest 
excuse for their existence. They may be summed up 
in one sentence, restoration of pictures, falsity of names, 
carelessness and neglect of preservation, illiberality as 
regards copying. Each one of these clauses deserves 
consideration in detail, and immediate remedies. If 
nothing else is done in Munich, surely the claims of 
art ought to be regarded in a city which calls itself the 



PICTURE -CLEANING. 



91 



capital of art. The mania of restoring pictures that 
has devastated so many galleries of Europe has not 
spared the Pinacothek. An art critic gives a pitiable 
sketch in a German newspaper of the process of re- 
storing as adopted in Munich. How often, he says, 
is the restorer a man of very small ability, who owes 
his appointment to backstairs influence, and who has a 
powerful stimulant to restore all possible pictures as he 
is paid by the piece. It is a mistake to suppose that 
all painters are connoisseurs; many modern painters 
never study the old masters for fear of spoiling their 
originality, and without a course of study no man can 
be master of such a subject. Many of these men 
undertake restoring as a means of eking out small 
incomes ; a painter does restoring work just as an em- 
ploye in a public office writes for newspapers, or makes 
up accounts, or performs any similar drudgery. The 
consequence of it in Munich is, that the works of 
Rubens are half spoiled, and twenty-eight years have 
transformed the Gallery from a perfect collection to 
an imperfect one. " Let any one examine the Fall of 
the Damned by Rubens," writes the critic, " a work 
of his best period, a work referred to in all his biogra- 
phies, and in all writings on art. The magic colouring, 
for which it was once so celebrated, has given place to 
an incoherent mixture of dark and light patches. Let 
any one look at Rubens's portrait of his second wife, 
and compare the flesh of the hand which holds the 
glove (and which has not been restored) with the flesh 
of the other hand and the bosom." 

If we turn to another branch, to the carelessness in 



92 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



preserving those pictures which have not been spoilt by 
this pretended restoration, we find very little improve- 
ment. Dust and mould settle on the canvas without 
being removed, the pictures are constantly taken down 
either to be restored, or to be copied, or to be re- 
numbered; and nothing is so apt to harm a picture 
as this constant removal. The floors of the Pinacothek 
are made of some sort of stucco which gives out a great 
deal of dust, and besides being obnoxious to the pictures, 
is one reason why no copying can go on in the rooms. 
One of the writers from whom I quote states the 
astounding fact, that a picture of Rubens was taken 
to a photographer's studio, a quarter of a mile distant 
from the Gallery, carried thither horizontally on the 
shoulders of six soldiers, and then left to stand in the 
sun. Partly owing to the unsuitable material of the 
floors, partly to natural illiberality, copying in Munich 
labours under great disadvantages. No copying of any 
kind is allowed in the rooms, you may not even make a 
sketch of a picture in your pocket-book. One room is 
devoted to copying, and in this room the light is bad, 
there is only place for ten persons, and at least five 
seats are always taken up by painters on porcelain. 
The man who wants to copy a picture has to pay for 
its being taken down and brought to this room, besides 
being called on for many incidental expenses, which are 
more than many art students in Munich can afford. 
While he is copying, of course the picture is useless for 
the public, and as most students choose the more cele- 
brated pictures, the public is constantly deprived of 
what it most desires to see. In most other galleries 



TO SELL A CATALOGUE. 



93 



copying goes on at the same time as public inspection : 
in Paris and Florence the same limits apply to both. 
In some cases, perhaps, copying is obnoxious to visitors, 
or visitors are obnoxious to copyists. But it is better 
to obviate disagreements by allowing certain days to 
each, as is done in the National Gallery, than to make 
war on both, as they do in the Pinacothek. 

In objecting to the constant taking down of pictures 
as hurtful to them, it has been added that they were 
taken down for bad purposes. Either they are taken 
down to be restored, which they would be better with- 
out, or to be copied, which might be done better if they 
stayed in their places, or for another reason. This 
other reason leads me to the great blemish of the 
Munich Gallery, the Catalogue. In order to make 
people buy catalogues the old ones are rendered useless 
by re-numbering. A sale is thus created for a publica- 
tion which is notoriously bad, and the proceeds of the 
sale are not employed in administering any remedy. 
No change has been made in the catalogue during the 
last twenty -five years, though that space of time is 
remarkable for the number of new discoveries in art 
it has witnessed. Here lies the chief crime of the 
Pinacothek, a crime of which the catalogue gives only 
the outward and visible sign. In the less frequented 
galleries of Italy, in out of the way churches, and half 
inhabited palaces, one has little reason to complain if 
anonymous copyists go by the name of Raphael, and 
quattrocento pictures are assigned to Salvator Rosa. 
But in Germany, and still more in Munich, one would 
think there was no danger of such ignorance. Is it not 



94 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



from German critics that all our present knowledge of 
art has come; are not the names of Rumohr, Kugler, 
Waagen, sufficient guarantees for the accuracy of their 
nation ? And yet, on good authority, there are no less 
than fifty-four pictures in the Pinacothek of Munich 
that are placed under false names in the catalogue. 

If the catalogue were not meagre in the extreme, it 
would afford some means of ascertaining the truth of its 
system of nomenclature. But to avoid the trouble of 
inquiring into dates and pedigrees and authorities, to 
avoid the disagreeable necessity of telling the truth and 
diminishing by nine-tenths the market value, the direc- 
tors of the Gallery have contented themselves with the 
shortest possible description of every picture, and have 
declined to put forth a catalogue raisonne. It is true, 
they answered one complainant by giving their per- 
mission to any one else who chose to undertake the 
issue of one; but that is scarcely the same as con- 
tributing to it themselves. They seem to look upon 
the catalogue simply as a source of revenue, not at all 
as a part of their duty. They never for a moment sup- 
pose that there is any sort of obligation attached to the 
possession of pictures. It is enough for them if the 
yearly proceeds derived from the sale of the present 
imperfect catalogue are large, and if they are not, the 
plain expedient of re-numbering the pictures supplies the 
deficiency. Meanwhile the wants of the Gallery remain 
unheeded, and the usefulness of a public institution is 
seriously diminished. The study of art is liable to be 
perverted, the fountain of early taste to be poisoned at 
its spring. It is quite impossible for a student to 



EDUCATION IN ART. 



95 



derive full benefit from the collection, to judge in future 
with any accuracy, or make comparisons and draw in- 
ferences with any certainty, when his point of departure 
is false. A young man who has a copy executed two 
hundred years after Raphael passed off on him as an 
original is not in a fit state to judge the genuine works 
of the master, and the confusion of mind into which a 
beginner must be thrown by the inequalities of the 
Italian pictures in Munich is almost fatal to learning. 
It hardly reflects much credit on the artistic taste 
of King Ludwig, and on the reality of his patronage, 
to learn that he bought the St. Cecilia in the Munich 
Gallery for more than £2,000 for his private gallery, 
believing it to be a genuine Raphael, and when the 
general verdict declared it a late copy, got disgusted 
with it, and presented it to the Pinacothek. 

It is, however, in the works of another school that 
the unreliable nature of the catalogue is most con- 
spicuous. And here it is even more hurtful than in the 
Italian rooms, because the early German and Flemish 
pictures form the strength of the Munich Gallery, and 
are nowhere else to be found in such numbers. Some 
might think it worth their while to pass many days in 
Munich to study these pictures alone, and might, if 
they were fresh to that branch of art, get more harm 
than good of their labour. Take for instance the works 
of Van Eyck. The catalogue gives us six pictures 
under his name. Dr. Waagen, in his " Handbook to 
the Schools of the Netherlands," denies the authenticity 
of every one of the six, agreeing in this with Messrs. 
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, whose work on the Early 



96 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Flemish Painters is the chief authority on the subject. 
The Triptych of the Adoration of the Kings (Cabinets, 
35, 36, 37) is by both assigned to Roger van der Weyden, 
as also St. Luke painting the Virgin (Cabinets, 42). 
The Offerings of the Magi (Rooms, 45) "Waagen at- 
tributes to a certain Court painter to Henry the 
Vlllth., while Crowe and CavalcaseUe assign it to 
the early half of the 16th century, without determin- 
ing the name of the painter. It is by an imitator of 
Van Eyck and Memling, they say, and is an attempt to 
graft the colour of Van Eyck on the composition of 
Memling. Memling, or Hemling, as he used to be 
named, and is named still in the Catalogue of the 
Pinacothek, is as badly treated as Van Eyck. Of nine 
pictures that bear his name only one is considered 
genuine by the authors of the Early Flemish Painters, 
and four by Waagen. M. Vitet, de VAcademie Fran- 
gaise, goes even further, and renounces them all. The 
indiscriminate condemnation is not borne out by the 
best judges, and is hardly safe. Messrs. Crowe and 
Caval^aselle call the large picture of the Seven Joys 
of Mary (Cabinets, 63), a genuine work, well executed 
and preserved, but ill-arranged and over-crowded. " If 
the whole is not a perfect picture, each little subject is 
quite a gem of finish." This verdict contrasts strangely 
with M. Vitet's wholesale denunciation, and one is 
tempted to quote from Horace : — 

" Quid quisque vitet nunqnam homini satis 
Cautum est in horas." 

Waagen also admits the Seven Joys to be genuine, and 



THE NEW PIXACOTHEK. 



97 



adds the Triptych of St. Christopher as an early work, 
though bearing traces of Van der Weyden. I confess 
that I am partial to this picture, and am more inclined 
to agree with Dr. YTaagen than with Messrs. Crowe and 
Cavalcaselle. In their judgment, it bears the impress 
of the school of Stuerbout, to whom they assign several 
other pictures, called Hemling in the catalogue, — The 
Israelites picking Manna, Melchisedec and Abraham, 
and The Kiss of Judas. I observe that Waasren agrees 
with them in these points, which may add some value 
to his divergence in respect of the St. Christopher. 
But even if this Triptych be admitted, five pictures are 
left, which all judges agree in re-naming. Six to Van 
Eyck and five to Memling, make eleven pictures under two 
names ; if the proportion were at all observed throughout 
the gallery, there would be an end of all study. It is 
beyond my present purpose to go more deeply into the 
subject. What I have already quoted will suffice to put 
visitors on their guard ; and rectifications are more in 
place in a new edition of Murray's Hand Book than in 
these pages. 

The new Pinacothek is rather unfairly treated by 
English travellers. "All very well, no doubt/'' says 
one, superciliously ; " but I prefer the Royal Academy. " 
Others sneer at the allegorical frescoes outside, "as 
oddly recalling the scenic temptations hung on the out- 
side of booths at fairs." Others, still more unfairly, 
insist on seeing the whole ; and if you are their travel- 
ling companion, and are dragged round the rooms with- 
out mercy, you sympathise strongly with the supercilious 
and the sneerers. But neither of them are quite just 



98 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



to the modern picture gallery of Munich. The outside, 
it is true, is detestable; and the frescoes are sign paint- 
ings. But their failure is not attributable to any inca- 
pacity on the part of the artist, to any attempt at glo- 
rifying the revival of German art. Most people see 
in them the most objectionable of styles, the ideal alle- 
gorical, applied to the most objectionable of ends, 
puffery. But in reality they are a series of squibs, by 
a very clever and bitter satirist ; and the evaporation of 
their spirit is attributable in great measure to the size 
at which they are painted. If any one looks over the 
sketches as they are hung up in one of the inside rooms, 
instead of looking at the colossal frescoes outside, he 
will have more chance of appreciating the artist. It 
would indeed be ridiculous, if these pictures were meant 
for a serious tribute to the modern art of Munich. To 
represent Cornelius and Overbeck fighting against pe- 
dants in order to release the Graces, would be consum- 
mate folly if it were meant seriously, seeing that these 
two painters are notorious for their exceeding pedantry, 
and have never once sacrificed to the Graces. But we 
know that Kaulbach's sketches were taken to be carica- 
tures by those who would otherwise have been flattered by 
them. The painter of the huge frescoes in the palace, 
Schnorr von Carolsfeld, published a protest against 
those of the new Pinacothek, and declared them untrue 
representations, as well as a disgrace to the nation. A 
stronger testimony in their favour could hardly have 
been uttered ; and it is only to be wished that they had 
been executed as effectively as they were conceived. 
But certain considerations seem to have paralysed the 



KAULB ACH^S SATIRE. 



99 



hand of the satirist. It must not be forgotten that he 
was a pupil of Cornelius, and had painted under his 
direction the same empty, mythological works, that he 
might otherwise have ridiculed. Besides, the suscep- 
tible feelings of the royal patron might have resented 
any open reflection upon the justness of the taste, and 
the liberal superintendance that developed the public 
works of Munich. Thus, Kaulbach has so judiciously 
veiled his satire, that it is generally interpreted as 
panegyric. 

A good deal of out-of-the-way knowledge, the sort of 
information learned only by gossip with the oldest inha- 
bitant, is required to fathom the secret satirical mean- 
ings of these frescoes ; and I have not proper access to 
it. Perhaps the present suggestion may tempt some 
duly qualified person to reveal the mysteries. As a 
slight indication of Kaulbaclr's spirit, let me point to 
the portly figure staggering in with a cushion on his 
arms covered with orders and decorations, at the right- 
hand corner of one of the pictures. This gentleman is 
the king's cook ; and the point consists in his carrying 
the cushion of orders as he would carry a tray of dishes. 
One needs no very deep study of Klenze's buildings to 
appreciate his portrait, where he sits making architec- 
tural designs and referring to a book close at hand for 
some warrant or model. It always struck me that the 
representations of King Ludwig, received enthusiastically 
by artists and connoisseurs, were to some extent parodies 
of the last pictures in Reineke Fuchs, — those in which 
the fox comes proudly through a triumphal arch, and is 
invested with an order by the lion. The allusion is cer- 



100 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



tainly very faint ; but something in the attitude of King 
Ludwig is a clear suggestion of it. 

Although the collection of pictures in the new Pina- 
cothek is very imperfect, and very capriciously selected, 
it has one great value to students of modern art. It is 
the only place in Munich where you can get any idea 
of the state of painting in Germany, and of the really 
meritorious painters who have not an European reputa- 
tion. The chief painters in each country are pretty 
well known by engravings, and by hearsay, which is even 
more effectual. But the painters of a second rank, men 
of great talent perhaps, highly valued already by native 
judges, and destined at some future time to achieve 
general distinction, are still unknown beyond the frontier. 
An opportunity, like that afforded by the International 
Exhibition, comes rarely ; and accident or caprice may 
prevent a good use being made of it, when it comes. I 
do not know what reason can be assigned for the paucity 
of exhibitors from Munich, in the fine art galleries; I 
find only the names of eleven painters from Bavaria in 
the catalogue, and two of the eleven were merely copy- 
ists. None of the greatest Munich names were there; 
scarcely any even of the second rank of painters, — of 
those represented in the new Pinacothek. It may not 
be surprising that the men engaged on great public 
works were absent, but these may be counted on the 
fingers, and the mass of smaller painters remains. In 
England, the yearly exhibitions draw out all the best 
pictures, and a zealous attendant at these is kept fully 
au courant. But, let any one familiar with foreign 
writings on English art ask himself, how many names 



HOW IT STRIKES FOREIGNERS. 



101 



of English painters are well known on the continent ? 
I read in a French criticism some time ago, that for 
certain reasons the English had no great landscape 
painter ; and the critic took pains to explain why Land- 
seer was not a great landscape painter, although the 
"reine d' Angleterre qui est riche et qui raffole des ouv- 
rages de Si?* Landseer lui couvre de guinees le moindre 
tableau" Apparently, the writer had never heard of a 
certain J. M. W. Turner. A German critic, estimating 
the comparative merits of the painters of different na- 
tions at the International Exhibition, says, " that modern 
English art is very mediocre. With the exception of 
Landseer, and perhaps of Frith, there are no prominent 
men of genius, — no movement of importance." It would 
be only too easy to retaliate on both French and Ger- 
mans, if one was so prejudiced in favour of one's own 
nation as to resent every species of criticism. But our 
judgments on foreign art have been habitually too hasty 
and too general; nor has even the show of admirable 
French pictures in the International taught all our critics 
to be just. A mere retaliation on the surface faults of 
the art of either nation, would neither wash out their 
unjust judgment nor aid to bring about future agree- 
ment. Of course, everybody is more or less prejudiced 
in favour of the products of his country. They are cal- 
culated for him ; hit his taste as far as taste can be pre- 
dicted ; and are, consequently, sure of some appreciation. 
With foreign things, on the other hand, the taste has 
to be created. And as the foreign thought has started 
from a widely different base, and tends to a different 
goal, any criticism of its details from the point of view 



102 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of another nation, without allowing the primary diver- 
gence, must necessarily be unfair. So long as an Eng- 
lishman compares a German landscape with Creswick, 
or a French genre picture with Mulready, and rejects 
them because they do not adopt his national standard, 
he is judging as crudely as the French and German 
critics I have quoted. Let the painter's means be un- 
satisfactory, and his end worthless, — he is fair game; 
but to dismiss him and his brethren in a line, because 
they do not happen to be English, is really a ludicrous 
perversion. 

For this reason the collection in the new Pinacothek 
is valuable to the traveller, as it affords him an oppor- 
tunity for making up his mind. It will be well to leave 
out all thought of the Royal Academy, not only on 
national grounds, but also because the products of a 
single year have a different effect from the gradual 
growth of many. You would not compare any number 
of the Quarterly Review with any number of the 
Times, although there may be three brilliant leading 
articles, and several foreign letters of great merit in 
one, and only inferior essays in the other. Goethe's 
saying is of wider application than even to what is 
really brilliant, and what is really solid and genuine. 

" Was glanzt, ist fur den Augenblick geboren; 
Das Aechte bleibt der ISachwelt unverloren." * 

It is, perhaps, a misfortune for Munich artists, that 

* What glitters is born for the moment. What is genuine remains 
unlost to posterity, — Hay ward's Translation of " Faust." 



BUYING IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. 103 

there is no yearly exhibition of pictures during the 
summer, when so many strangers pass through. The 
reputation of Munich as an art-producing town is so 
great, that lovers of art naturally look for some such 
public show, and are liable to be disappointed at finding 
none. The Art Union, where so many pictures are 
exhibited, is inaccessible to strangers without some in- 
troduction, and the pictures exhibited there are not the 
best class of works. To go round to studios requires 
considerable time and effectual guidance, nor does one 
feel free to express opinions in the presence of the 
painter. Thus it is that the new Pinacothek is the 
only resource left to strangers, and the purchase of a 
picture for the new Pinacothek is so valuable to artists, 
that they are willing to sell their pictures at any price 
King Ludwig may offer. I am told he gets pictures 
cheaper than any dealer, and that artists would gladly 
make him a present of their works, to have them hung 
on the walls of his gallery. One painter who could 
find no custom for his pictures, was fortunate enough to 
sell two of them to the king, and was instantly over- 
done with commissions. With such temptations to buy 
worthless pictures cheap, and encourage poor artists at 
the expense of the many who want to have galleries 
without an idea of taste, it is strange that King Lud- 
wig has contrived to collect so many works of decided 
merit. The description of the gallery in Murray's 
Hand-Book is so cursory, that I shall take the 
liberty of accompanying the visitor. 

The first of the large rooms contains Kaulbach/s fine 
portrait of King Ludwig, wearing the dress of the 



104 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Bavarian Order of St. Hubert. In the second room is 
the unfinished picture of the Deluge by Carl Schorn, 
Piloty's " Seni discovering the dead body of Wallen- 
stein/' a good picture of Verona bathed in sunshine by 
Kirchner, and two paintings of the interior of West- 
minster Abbey, which are rather cold and painty. There 
is great vigour, many touches of feeling in Schorn' s 
Deluge, although its incompleteness is most likely to 
act unfavourably on the spectator. The expression of 
some of the faces is decidedly good ; — the furious des- 
pair with which one man is praying to his graven image, 
the king or chieftain at the top throwing his arms up 
to heaven, and the slow rising of the water storming 
the peak on which the last survivors have taken refuge. 
Piloty's picture of Wallenstein is firmly and solidly 
painted, though not free from a certain heaviness which 
has appeared more strongly in his subsequent work, 
Nero among the ruins of Rome. The attitude of the 
chief figure, it is true, is borrowed from Delaroche's 
Due de Guise, and there is a calmness in Seni's look on 
the dead body which answers the conventional view of 
an astrologer, but is not equal to the dramatic truth of 
Schiller. Stuff is very well painted in Piloty's Wal- 
lenstein, the whole is arranged like a tableau vivant, 
and the forced repose of the dead, the overawed quiet of 
the living, the neatly studied disorder, enable the 
painter to dwell on contrasts and details with the mi- 
nuteness of an inventory. The table cloth, on the 
end of which Wallenstein has fallen, dragging it half 
off the table, the carpet turned over on itself in the 
death-scuffle, the long dress of Wallenstein himself, 



piloty's wallenstein. 



105 



and the deep rich purple of Seni, are admirably done, 
and these things seize the eye at the first glance, and 
dwell on the memory amidst the barbarous painting of 
the other great pictures in the building. There is an 
attempt at more than stuff-painting too, as if Piloty 
was to some extent penetrated by the tragic depth of 
his subject, but was hampered by his love of material. 
Wallenstein' s face is noble, and his repose is that of 
violent death. Spite of the conventional view of Seni, 
there is a sorrow, a yearning against fate in his expres- 
sion, and consciousness of age and powerlessness. But 
how weak this painting seems to achieve the height of 
the argument ! In the fifth act of Wallenstein, Schiller 
rises to greater dramatic power than he has ever shown, 
and a comparison of his version with this of Piloty' s, 
should warn every painter against attempting the sum- 
mit of tragedy, with such clogs of silk and satin upon 
him. 

The third large room contains Kaulbach's Destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, two portraits of painters in the cos- 
tumes they wore at an artists' ball, by the same, and a 
landscape by Heinlein. The latter is one of the best- 
known landscape painters in Munich. I have seen 
works of his that pleased me more than this. The 
fourth room contains a picture of Schraudolph's, which 
has only lately been added to the gallery, two land- 
scapes of Albert Zimmermann's, an old one, represent- 
ing centaurs fighting with leopards, which does not 
much attract me, and a new one of a waterfall pouring 
through a rocky mountain country, which pleases me 
highly ; two or three other landscapes, one of them by 



106 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Schleich, and a strange blue canvas of Otho's Entry 
into Nauplia, 1833, by Peter Hess. The landscapes 
are the only remarkable feature of this room j Schrau- 
dolph's religious picture is conventional in the extreme, 
andPeter Hess is not only hard in his colouring, and 
unpleasing in his drawing, but his attempt at repro- 
ducing the blue water and sky and mountains of Greece, 
succeeds only in transferring pigments from his palette 
to the picture, without any preparation. The fifth large 
room is also occupied with religious pictures ; an Ascen- 
sion by Schraudolph, an Altar-piece of Henry Hess, 
and a Holy Family by Overbeck. There is little to re- 
mark in any of the three. Enough has been said on 
the religious painting of modern Germany to enable 
me to be silent. I must remark, however, that this 
Holy Family of Overbeck's is tolerably known by 
means of engravings. The Virgin stands behind look- 
ing on our Saviour and John the Baptist, accompanied 
by a cross and a lamb. I had at one time thought that 
it might be possible to assign each of the figures to 
their original, but on examining the picture more care- 
fully I had to abandon the thought. Raphael, Francia, 
and Perugino, are all more or less mixed up in the 
group. The background is Raphael's every line, but 
Raphael under the tuition of Perugino. The Virgin's 
dress is a literal copy of Raphael's drapery, the attitude 
of one child is adapted from the Belle Jardiniere, and 
the figure of the Virgin more or less resembles the 
Cardellino at Florence. But it is useless to particu- 
larise sources, when one look is sufficient to detect the 
general origin. 



WANT OF CLEARNESS. 



107 



Rottmann's encaustic landscapes have the next room 
to themselves, a room so arranged that while all the 
centre is dark the walls are fully lighted from above, 
and at a distance the pictures have all the effect of 
illusion. But they do not bear close examination, and 
the spectator must be warned to remain in the darkness 
himself if he would feast his eyes on their light. From 
the last but one of the large rooms, that in which the 
two large altar pieces front each other, we go into the 
smaller rooms on the southern side of the building. 
The numbers begin from the other end, but the most 
natural way of seeing the rooms is by reversing the 
numbers. We thus begin with the fifth room. A 
sheep- stall, by the celebrated Dutch painter Verboek- 
hoven, and a knight entertained by Dominican monks, 
by Eugene Hess, are the best pictures in it; one or 
two others are worthy of remark, but not of decided 
praise. Schadow's Holy Family is likely to attract 
attention as thoroughly German-religious; the view of 
the reigning King of Bavaria's fancy castle of Hohen- 
schwangau is curious, and the picture of the fortune- 
teller is remarkable, as showing the inability of so 
many Munich artists to tell a plain story. From the 
attitude of the old woman, and the way the young man 
sinks back in his chair, with one hand on his pocket, as 
if he was cleaned out, one would think the two were 
playing a game, and that the old woman had beggared 
her neighbour; it is only by noticing the earnest faces 
of the other characters that one sees the meaning. 
How differently a French artist would have told the 
story ! There would have been no possibility of a mistake. 



108 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Eugene Hess's picture of the two monks entertaining a 
stout red-faced knight is an admirable work, just what 
a genre painting should be. All the accessories are 
solidly and carefully painted, the jugs, the bottles, all 
the little minutiae that one cannot detail in verbal de- 
scription, but which tell so decidedly on the general 
effect of a picture. Foreign painters are so sparingly 
represented in this gallery that one is thankful for all 
one can get, and the sheep-stall of Verboekhoven is so 
perfectly original in the different range of subjects 
chosen by German painters, that one is inclined either 
to rate it too high or too low. 

In the next room we have a a picture of Leys, a 
village- street in Holland, one of Adam's battle-pieces, 
a temple of Pzestum, by Coignet ; a Veronese cemetery, 
by Kirchner ; and a fine work of Gallait's, a Monk feed- 
ing the Poor in a Cloister. These works of Leys and 
Gallait are very different from those more ambitious 
pictures of theirs that made so much sensation in the 
International Exhibition. Leys' s Village-street is quiet 
and retiring, many people would be likely to pass over 
it without giving it a second look, if they did not happen 
to remember the name ; but the longer you stand before 
it the more certain your appreciation. Gallait's fine 
figure of the young monk holding the large stone jar to 
the mouth of one of the poor can hardly be overlooked, 
however ; but the picture is colder and paler than his 
later works, resembling in some points his Tasso and 
Montaigne. Kirchner seems devoted to Verona, and 
the Italian towns at the foot of the Alps. There is a 
glow of colour and light on all his pictures, w T hich 



BATTLE PIECES. 



109 



harmonises with the depth and richness of the architec- 
ture he loves to paint. Passing over the room of 
Kaulbach's sketches for the frescoes without, the visitor 
having already been exhorted to study them carefully, 
we find two more of Adam's large battle-pieces in the 
next, Novara and Custozza, which, with the Storming of 
the Fortifications of Diippel in the Schleswig-Holstein 
war (fourth room) may serve as a text for a short view 
of the painter. I am not in general very partial to 
battle-pieces, nor do I think that a painting of any 
celebrated battle is of any value, unless it betray some 
decided genius in the artist. For the object of painting 
a battle is not to show how the field was won, but to 
extract some interest from it. The dry historical de- 
scription of any celebrated fight, if utterly unreadable 
to the student of history, may yet be valuable to the 
military critic, may serve to convey hints to future 
generals, and may season future addresses to armies 
drawn up before the enemy. But a picture cannot 
pretend to such a mission. No military critic would 
judge a battle from a picture of it, and no general 
would draw up his troops in a certain order because he 
had seen troops so drawn up on the canvas. The 
painter must give you the spirit of the battle, not the 
details ; he must compress into the space of a moment 
what may have taken hours to execute ; must seize the 
dramatic pith of the story, and present it at the cul- 
minating moment of the day. Most painters have ap- 
preciated this to some extent; Adam seems never to 
have had an idea of it. One does not get the faintest 
notion of any unity in these battle-pieces. In the im- 



110 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



mediate foreground one has the details which one would 
most gladly avoid, put the most prominently forward ; 
soldiers march by next, and a shell explodes in the 
middle of them ; beyond are officers on horseback, very 
probably taken from the life. This is the outskirts of 
the battle ; what effect has this on the whole ? Par 
better the conventional cloud of smoke, and one or two 
bullets coming out of it, than these sickening details in 
their worst reality. If the object of the painter had 
been to disgust us with war, he could not have chosen 
his ground better ; but that could hardly have been the 
wish of the man who set himself as a glorious task to 
celebrate German victories, and chose as such the 
execrable fields in which the liberty of Italy was over- 
thrown. One would think that in Adam's view the 
soldier who is binding up his wound in the foreground 
was the hero of the day, as in Victor Hugo's view it 
was Cambronne who won the battle of Waterloo. The 
laws of painting, however, are very distinct from the 
laws of description. The prophet can say with magni- 
ficent vagueness that every battle of the warrior is with 
confused noise and garments rolled in blood ; but the 
painter must banish those thoughts from his canvas if 
he would not give us a ghastly reality. How very dif- 
ferent the spirited and admirable battle-pieces of the 
French; one feels that achievements are being done, 
and one is not forced to dwell on what is revolting to 
humanity. That Adam's pictures are cold and un- 
pleasing in colour is not surprising; one who could 
sympathise with the ugly heroes of the Austrian garb 
had no claim to glow or to feeling. 



SMALLER PICTURES. 



Ill 



A fine picture of gipsies, brought up for stealing, by 
Claude Jacquand; a Venetian Court, by Kirchner; and 
one of the interminable winter landscapes of Richard 
Zimmercnann, are pleasant changes from the battle 
pictures that hang in this second room. The one of 
the gipsies is especially powerful, both in character and 
painting. The first room, to which we come last, has a 
fine landscape of Andreas Achenbach, who is generally 
ranked as the first of German landscape painters. The 
scene represented is the Pontine Marshes ; — an autumn 
morning, and the glow of colour is almost dazzling. I 
scarcely know how to describe the effect produced, — so 
much warmth and so much brilliance combine, that it 
would seem a sunset at mid-day. Geyer's Medical 
Consultation, which hangs next, is also a good picture, 
though the faces are not entirely original ; but his com- 
panion work, The End of a masked Ball, is to the French 
models, by which it is inspired, what Hacklander is to 
Balzac. 

The inferior works are generally placed in the small 
cabinets, which may be more hastily viewed. No Eng- 
lishman is likely to leave the building without seeing 
Wilkie's Reading of the Will, which is in the second 
cabinet, In the fourth cabinet hangs Stieler^s portrait 
of Goethe, which is engraved in Mr. Lewes' s " Life," as 
frontispiece to the second volume. In the fifth cabinet 
Hassenclever's picture of the examination scene in the 
J obsiad, very clever and spirited ; the helpless ignorance 
of the candidate, his enormous blunders, and the amuse- 
ment of the doctors baiting him. The tenth and eleventh 
cabinets contain the curious views of old Munich, which 



112 SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 

I have already noticed ; the thirteenth, some views of 
Heidelberg, by Kirchner ; and the fourteenth, a picture 
from the Thirty Years' "War, by Eugene Hess, — the 
Swedish general, Wrangel, surprised while hunting 
near Dachau, by the Bavarian general, Johann von 
Werth. 



CHAPTER VII. 



KUNSTLER-FESTE. 

There are, I believe, about a thousand artists in Munich, 
and the most agreeable feature of this society is its love 
of amusement and pageant. The costume balls, that 
have at different times been organised by the Munich 
painters, are constant subjects of remembrance; and 
the yearly excursion to the country in May adds a relish 
to the spring. It has not been my fortune to see 
any of the grander feasts with which the memories of 
great men, or the anniversaries of notable events in the 
art- world, are recorded, saving that one that I shall de- 
scribe in the next chapter. But I purpose here to devote 
a few pages to two of the ordinary festivals that I wit- 
nessed, — the fancy ball and the May-feast of 1862. 

The continental habit of confining all dancing to the 
Carnival, and crowding ball upon ball, revel upon revel, 
into the last days before Lent, if it does not lead to 
unrestrained gaiety and frantic pleasure, as it does in 
Paris, is apt to be a kill-joy. It certainly acts as such 
in Munich. People who would willingly amuse them- 
selves moderately during a season of sufficient length, 
find themselves compelled by law to crowd all their 



114 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



amusement into six or eight weeks, without a pause to 
recover their breath in, to concoct small talk, and inter- 
pret the clever remarks that they put aside as needing 
reflection. Thus they come to the Carnival as a duty, 
and go through it with the serious face and resolution 
that duty requires. The young ladies go to balls to 
dance, and dance because it is their duty. At the end 
of the Carnival come the masked-balls, and people go in 
masks because it is their duty. The sagacious remark, 
however, that you may take a horse to the water, but 
can't make him drink, applies to this enforced amuse- 
ment ; and though people go to the masked-balls be- 
cause they think it their duty, they cannot amuse them- 
selves for that reason. The court masked-balls stand 
in need of no such enlivenment, for the court is too 
much accustomed to parade itself to need the excuse of 
amusement. But I cannot conceive why private per- 
sons should go to the theatre in order to sit in the 
boxes and see the royal family walking about in cos- 
tume on the floor, though the attraction of the sight was 
once fully explained to me by a spectator. " It is exceed- 
ingly pleasant," he said. "The pit and stage are 
boarded over so as to form a level surface, and are 
spread w r ith a carpet. There are several little tables laid 
about at which the King and the royal family sit down 
if they feel inclined, or else they walk to and fro. You sit 
in the boxes and watch them; it is very amusing." I 
must be allowed to differ. If the royal persons were in 
any costume, if anything that we are accustomed to as- 
sociate with masked balls took place, there might be 
some fun in looking on. But that one figure in a black 



EXTRAORDINARY DELUSIONS. 



115 



domino is the King and another the old King, and that 
these black figures sit down at little tables or walk about 
on the floor, can in no possible degree cause a rational 
being to be amused or excited. 

I do not wish to imply that the stupidity of these 
masked balls is owing to their being held in Munich. 
So far from this, I have generally found masked balls, 
even in places where they are indigenous, beyond measure 
tedious. It must be borne in mind that to enter into 
the fun of intriguing you must be well known to some 
of the company, and a disguise which merely prevents 
you from seeing a strange face is quite useless and need 
not be effectual. The interest of a masked ball consists 
in friends playing tricks on each other, in persons who 
are familiar with all your ways evincing their familiarity 
without being detected. It is rare for a stranger in a 
place to have such friends, and yet strangers are the 
very people who look for amusement in going to masked 
balls. Besides which, in many places once celebrated for 
gaiety, the spirit has departed. It is all very well for 
the defenders of the Austrian rule in Venice to draw 
pictures of the real content of the people, and to argue 
that the stagnation is merely an invention or is got up 
by the enemies of the government. If this were so, the 
masked balls would probably be attended by some others 
than strangers, and those who make their sex their pro- 
fession. As it is you need only go to the far famed Ri- 
dotto to find an Italian version of Cremorne, and I think 
of the two most Englishmen would prefer the latter. 

The fancy balls that the Munich artists arrange about 
every three years are very different from the ordinary 



116 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



masked balls that I have mentioned. Some of them 
which have been more than ordinarily successful, have 
lingered long in the memory of the town, and have 
served to disparage subsequent attempts which were less 
praiseworthy. A subject is always chosen, and the cos- 
tume of the period rigorously observed. Thus it hap- 
pens that the dresses are not left to the choice of the 
wearers, as in fancy balls generally, and odds and ends 
cannot be pieced into a nondescript attire. Sketches 
are made by the artists who organise the ball of the 
dresses that are to appear, and if you wish to take a cos- 
tume you must adopt one of the sketches and follow 
it rigorously. The disorderly mass of vestments that 
appears at fancy balls where all is left to individual ca- 
price is thus avoided ; none of those soldiers talking with 
Pierrots, old court dresses, sailors, Turks, Swiss peasant 
girls and Diana of the Ephesians. A very celebrated 
ball some years ago represented Rubens ; this time the 
subject taken was an historical panorama of fairy tales. 
Half the artistic world was engaged for months preparing 
sketches, or dresses, or decorations for the ball, and from 
an artistic point of view the success of the pageant was 
complete. The hall of the Odeon was beautifully deco- 
rated, the dresses were all in keeping with each other 
and were highly to be praised, each train was well organ- 
ised and swept past with splendour that seemed too real 
to be mimic. But it was this very splendour that de- 
tracted from the perfect success in all other respects. 
The character of the fairy tales was not duly preserved. 
Some jealous feeling had kept the elder artists from 
joining, and the younger artists, not to be left in the 



MORAL OF FAIRY TALES. 



117 



lurch, had to call in the bourgeois world to assist them, 
The humour of the feast and the character of the society- 
suffered by the mixture. Of course those members of 
the bourgeoisie who took characters preferred the showy 
dresses to the characteristic dresses. Every one wanted 
to be a prince or princess, and though the sketches were 
followed, the harmony of the whole picture was des- 
troyed. A very slight reflection suffices to show that 
the courts and rich dresses which may be made to figure 
prominently in fairy tales are only put in as concessions 
to human weakness, and are not the essential part of 
the story. The fairy element is the real thing in each 
story; you may vary the accessories, or even remove 
them altogether without any serious harm. In Cinde- 
rella, for instance, the pumpkin which was turned into a 
coach, the rats that were turned into the coach-horses— 
I quote from memory — are far more interesting than the 
toilets of the two sisters and the prince's train. But in 
a procession the two sisters take a much higher place 
than they are allowed by the fairy annalist, and the ba- 
lance of right and wrong is disturbed. Perhaps this view 
of the subject is taken in order to show that the merits 
of the good characters were greater, and the temptations 
to which they were exposed more dangerous than we 
should gather from the stories. We always thought 
that there was no particular merit in resisting the proud 
sisters and choosing the humble one, because Ave knew 
that the proud sisters were wicked and that the humble 
sister was good. But when we see them pass before us 
we forget their pride and wickedness, and might very 
probably, if we were in the place of the prince, succumb 



118 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



to the temptation and take tlie wrong one. If this was 
the object of the procession, we ought to thank it for the 
new light it throws on the fairy characters. 

No such excuse, however, can be found for the pre- 
dominance of court dresses. The charm of the fairy 
tales would be extinguished, as well as their moral, if 
they merely led up to a life at court. No one would 
be either virtuous or clever, if he was to be rewarded 
by being placed in a situation where neither of those 
qualities would avail him. As I have said before, the 
introduction of courts and riches is a concession to hu- 
man weakness. Some reward is needed for virtue, and 
some object for the exertion of cleverness; so the fairy 
annalist throws in what seems most splendid, merely to 
imply what he cannot exactly convey. The fairy world 
in which the characters move is before all things fan- 
tastic, and is so far above the real world, that an actual 
court is a descent from it. But as court is above us 
who read, so there must be something above the fairy 
world, and this something is conveyed to us by a symbol 
which we are supposed to be capable of appreciating. 

Enough of these metaphysical considerations, which 
are rather out of place as an introduction to a fancy 
ball. I merely wish to imply that the dresses were 
deficient in character, and over-abounding in splendour ; 
that there was more sameness than fun. Having en- 
tered this protest, let me turn to description. 

The large hall of the Odeon was turned into a fairy 
world. The pillars were hidden behind a mass of tro- 
pical vegetation, flowers and creepers hanging in fes- 
toons across the spaces between, gay birds, butterflies, 



THE FAIRY WORLD. 



119 



and lizards swarming through the foliage. The whole 
effect was highly fantastic, and prepared the imagina- 
tion for the fairy panorama that was to come by initia- 
tion into fairy life. One hardly recognised the room in 
which one had heard so many concerts, or the columns 
behind which single gentlemen are supposed to crowd 
themselves, so as to leave the body of the hall to the 
ladies. Everything was softened away, and the lovely 
screen of rich tropical growth shut out the real world. 
Up the pillars swarmed snails of great size, with shells 
of gorgeous blue and gold, happily idealised so as to 
present no trace of affinity with the coarser snails of 
daily life; green tree-frogs keeping pace with gaudy 
lizards, and humming birds balanced their graceful 
forms on the festoons of luxuriant creepers, while at 
the top a giant peacock was perched, its feathers made 
of reeds, and their tips wrought up to natural beauty 
by the aid of moss. The stage at the end of the hall 
was screened by a large red curtain, in the middle of 
which a lesser drop curtain hid a lesser stage. In front 
of this the spectators congregated, all standing and 
waiting with exemplary patience, till the arrival of the 
Queen should give the signal to begin. 

But with the arrival of the Queen all patience evapo- 
rated. Hitherto each one had stood his ground without 
much difficulty, and the occasional pushing of those 
ambitious of better places, had not caused much dis- 
composure. But the presence of the Queen was made 
generally known by an oscillation in the crowd, like the 
setting in of a rapid tide. The cheering and shouting 
caused a violent swell like a gale, but the movement to 



120 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



and fro went on after the cheering had subsided with 
more regularity and more trying result. Looking to 
discover the cause of the motion, I at last ascertained 
that it was owing to the shorter people rising spasmodi- 
cally on tip-toes to catch a view of the royal party. A 
lady close to me gave me the most practical insight into 
the workings of this manoeuvre. She was very short 
and very active, and her hoop was exceedingly sharp. 
Every moment she made a sudden start on to her toes, 
and each start brought her hoop in such violent contact 
with my legs, that I had to recoil a step. In such a 
crowd a recoil only throws you against a barrier of im- 
passable forms, but your impulse communicates a certain 
motion to them that is felt through several rows in that 
direction. You have only to multiply the short lady 
who sets you going by the number of similar short 
ladies in the room, to find the force of the oscillation. 
And to ascertain this may, perhaps, enable you to 
compute the force of the loyal curiosity, which is the 
primary cause of the movement, and to which I have 
so often to refer in the course of my narrative. 

When the Queen is seated, the small drop curtain 
rises, and a little operetta is performed. This was an 
amusing little piece composed for the occasion, dealing 
with two young people of the fairy world, named Han- 
sel and Grethel. What with the enchanted prince of 
sugar candy, who had been turned into a bear, the old 
ogre who loved children .(roasted), the witch his house- 
keeper, who heated the oven, and was tipped into it 
herself by the children, what with the house roofed with 
cakes to entice wandering children into the ogre's 



FAIRY GROUPS. 



121 



clutches, arid the appearance of the dreaded police in 
all their Munich majesty, the play succeeded very well, 
and every one who could hear it was amused. But now r 
came the business of the evening. The large red cur- 
tain was drawn aside, showing a castle on the Rhine. 
Pinnacles and battlements rose from the precipitous 
rock hanging over the river, like some of those Italian 
hill-towns that seem to cling by main force to the scanty 
soil. From the gate of the castle came the procession 
down a sloping way across the stage, and drew up in a 
line facing the audience. Each branch of the fairy tale 
was represented by a special train, which marched round 
the hall in front of the Queen, and too much on a level 
with the mass of the crowd to be sufficiently inspected. 
First came the Prince of Sugar Candy, and his wedding 
train, representing nursery tales. Then the fairy tale 
bordering on legend, the fairy tale in its relation to home 
and family life, represented by Cinderella ; forest tales, 
Snowdrop and the seven dwarfs, Little Red Riding 
Hood, Riibegahl and the Gnomes ; the fairy shapes of 
the watery world, the Queen of the Nixies, and fairy 
tales of humour, Puss in Boots, and the Goose with 
the Golden Feathers. One was glad to recognise many 
of one's old playmates, many of the friends of early 
childhood. The Seven Ravens walked about staring at 
the company, and sometimes pecking. Puss in Boots 
seemed lively and intelligent, the reapers and mowers 
who accompanied him did not shake off the tame 
characteristics of the agricultural mind. The frogs who 
supported the car of the princess in the story of the 
Enchanted Frog, the strange watery shapes attending 

G 



122 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the Queen of the Nixies, the solemn little dwarfs with 
their long white beards escorting Snowdrop, the wolf 
following Little Ked Riding Hood, were all well got up, 
though, perhaps, a little too pose. 

With the procession the formal ceremony is over, 
and the company divides itself into dancers and sup- 
pers. The Queen retires, and, after her retirement, it 
is but fair to mention that the programme laid before 
her was illuminated with the artistic feeling of a missal 
paicter of old time. The flies and bees crawling in 
and out of the letters, the animals at the head of the 
page, were painted with admirable truth, and in some 
cases the illusion was perfect. The pains bestowed on 
a work that could scarcely look for meet recompense, 
the talent and skill exerted by the painter, were far 
beyond the occasion, and deserved special appreciation. 
Let us hope the programme is preserved in the palace, 
among those many paintings that distinguish it from 
all other palaces in Europe. 

Meanwhile the supper-room is not deficient in some 
traits of character that come out very strongly at balls. 
Every place has been taken the moment the doors are 
open, and many seem determined to sit there, not to 
sup, but to rest. Ladies occupy tables with a glass of 
lemonade before them, others go to dance, leaving a 
pater familias to take charge of their seats, and hungry 
guests find no room from one end to the other. So 
crying at last does the evil become that the hotel- 
keeper, who has charge of the food, goes round and 
expostulates. One person, when requested to leave, 
replies indignantly, "I have been here all the even- 



A COUNTRY EXCURSION. 



123 



ing," as if tliat were not tlie best reason for going then. 
Dancing goes on all tlie time in the large hall, a space 
round being with difficulty cleared, in which the couples 
follow each other like bubbles floating down a stream. 
The fairy characters have generally taken sufficient ex- 
ercise during the performance of their parts, but some 
of them are dancing still. A lucky mortal has been 
favoured with the hand of the princess who but lately 
made the Enchanted Frog the happiest of princes. We 
leave them waltzing. 

Very different is the atmosphere of the May Feast, 
which needs a fine day, and some charming spot in the 
country. One has got rather sceptical of late about 
the beauties of May ; but when that month comes out 
in all its glory, nothing can be more delightful. This 
year everything was forward, and May was glorious. 

An artistical ticket, showing a train of children in 
procession bearing lilies of the valley, and attended by a 
May-bug as instrumentalist, admitted to the feast. The 
train took its thousand passengers away from Munich, 
turned off from the wide dreary plain that extends un- 
interruptedly to Augsburg, and ascended the course of 
the Wurm towards Starnberg — past the forests of fir 
and oak that inclose the strange chapel of the Virgin 
at Planegg, the Sunday excursion of so many Munichers, 
till we get out at a station on an eminence looking 
down on the lovely Muhlthal, with the stream gushing 
from the mill, and beyond at the succession of ridges 
that leads the eye to the blue line of mountains. A 
run down the grassy slope takes us into the valley, and 
we roam through paths in the beechwood till we come 



124 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



to the group of buildings, the small old chapel with a 
red top-knot, and the wooded hill of Petersbrunn. 
Here is the site chosen for the festival, and by the time 
we arrive the woods are already alive with revellers. 
Light spring dresses are glinting pleasantly through the 
mass of fresh young sunny green, intersected by the 
clear straight stems of the beeches ; and here and there 
are flags wreathed among the branches, which scarcely 
add to the picturesque effect, save when their colour 
contrasts with that surrounding. Tables are spread 
about, and one has a moveable kitchen, from which the 
smoke curls up in faint clouds, and the demands for 
food and beer are voluble from an early hour of the 
morning. For the artists, not like us degenerate 
mortals who take the train all the way, have walked 
in procession from the third station, and even at the 
early German dinner-hour much of the food is ex- 
hausted. In one place a plateau has been made of 
boards for dancing ; in another is a tent that, later in 
the day, is to dispense Mai-wein. Meanwhile we stroll 
about the beechwood along the paths leading in all 
directions, admiring the pretty faces and bewildering 
dresses that seem to have turned out for this time only, 
glad to see artists of European celebrity casting off 
the cares of historical painting to enjoy themselves 
like children, and stopping every now and then to get a 
peep at some picturesque bit of scenery or effect that 
would make a picture of itself. Here we catch a glimpse 
of the bulbous red tower of the little chapel below, 
thrusting itself between two boughs of the lovely green 
leaves. Here we find the branches receding so as to 



COUNTRY APPETITES. 



125 



form the mouth of a cavern, and the setting for a 
picture of the Lake of Starnberg, a couple of miles 
away. Anything so picturesque as the general effect 
it would be hard to conceive possible, so great is the 
talent employed by the artists of Germany in organizing 
such spectacles, so kindly does Nature lend herself to 
complete the panorama. 

We now look about for a table and some dinner, 
both of which are easier looked for than found. All 
those in the wood are crowded, and the balcony of the 
inn is equally so. At last we get places, and proceed 
to the bar across the kitchen-door to find food. The 
crowd already congregated in the narrow way is little 
disposed to yield; plates and dishes are passed over 
their heads, and the solitary waiter of the establishment 
stands afar off and shouts to the cooks. It is a marvel 
how fathers of families get out with piles of soup-plates, 
like waiters in Vienna, and manage to convey the con- 
tents safely to their ravenous brood. But when you 
have got at last a limb of roast goose, which is quite an 
anatomical study, and is charged accordingly, you must 
get a plate from another quarter, and your glass of beer 
from a vault over the road. Carts, conveying casks 
and barrels, are still coming up, and huge baskets full 
of brown bread are speedily emptied. But dinner is 
now over, and we scramble up again into the wood with 
rather more difficulty than before. The tent which we 
noticed in the morning is open, and the artists who 
concocted the Mai-wein are serving it out in large 
glasses. A pile of Waldmeister (Asperula odorata, 
sweet-scented woodroof) lies on the board to be mixed 



126 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



ad libitum, and the delicious potion only needs the 
artistic barrel-glasses and the floating flowers to equal 
its insidious brother of the Rhine. Certain it is that 
to many the Mai-wein forms the vital part of the Mai- 
Fest, the libation in honour of the new god May, with- 
out which the deity could not be propitiated. At any 
rate, the devotion of his subjects shows itself most 
copiously, and with as much gratification to themselves 
as to the object of their worship. 

After this refreshment the dancing begins. Young 
ladies who are stripped for the occasion of hats and 
mantles enter the lists, and the small space is soon full 
of moving couples. Some dance well, especially the 
ladies; some dance badly, and some cannot dance at 
all. One gentleman seems to have got up a species of 
Irish jig, which he dances with much violence, to the 
confusion of the other dancers, sometimes amounting to 
a dead lock. The dances are interspersed with choruses, 
sung with wonted German accuracy and precision. Then 
comes the event of the day. A gentleman who is famed 
for such performances gets on a tub and delivers his 
Capuchin sermon. Written in rhyme, and abounding 
with jokes, it may be supposed this sermon was listened 
to with less solemnity, though often with more atten- 
tion, than is vouchsafed to serious preachers. One in- 
terruption of a ludicrous character, however, might have 
occurred elsewhere, and taxed the preacher's gravity as 
much as the interruptions of Lord Dudley and Ward 
the gravity of the Rev. Sydney Smith. Before giving 
his text the preacher made an emphatic pause : " We 
read in the Bible — " Cuckoo, cuckoo," from an irre- 



THE FEAST WAS OVER. 



127 



verent bird in a neighbouring tree. With this the re- 
markable character of the feast was completed. Dances, 
and songs and potations occupied the afternoon till 
twilight warned us to be gone. And so back to the 
station, through the darkening woods, the stems stand- 
ing erect and silent like sentries, and the leaves laid to 
rest and murmuring in their sleep. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



CORNELIUS IN MUNICH. 



The father of modem German art — as it is tlie fashion 
to call Peter von Cornelius — happened to pass through 
Munich on his way from Rome to Berlin, and his many 
hundred sons, grand-sons, step-sons, and adopted sons, 
joined to give him a greeting. The place chosen for the 
feast was the Westend- Halle, one of the largest beer 
and dancing saloons in Munich. Above four hundred 
artists were present, and many other notabilities. The 
large hall was beautifully decorated with the unfailing 
taste of a city of artists, the taste which shows itself 
most conspicuously in decorations and processions. 
Garlands and flags hung from the ceiling and the pillars 
that supported the balconies, chandeliers with tasteful 
wreaths, paintings, and a fine bust of the hero of the 
feast. At the end of the hall was a small stage erected 
for the dramatic part of the feast ; immediately beneath 
was the table for Cornelius and his supporters ; the 
rest of the hall, and a large ante-room, were crowded 
with tables, and the tables were crowded with all the 
intellectual population of Munich. At about half -past 
seven Cornelius appeared escorted by a deputation, " a 



THE CORNELIUS FEAST. 129 

little Druid wight/' to quote the description of the 
poet in the Castle of Indolence, "of withered aspect, 
but his eye was keen." That he looked feeble may be 
accounted for by the age of seventy-four that he had 
attained, and the nervousness he seemed to show by the 
presence of such a crowd of admirers. When he was 
seated the curtain of the stage rose, and three artists 
presented a dramatic prologue, in which Munich, Dus- 
seldorf, and Rome disputed the right of crowning the 
artist, till they came to mutual agreement, and crowned 
his bust together. The supper was interrupted by va- 
rious speeches which were not much listened to, save a 
few words from Cornelius in praise of King Ludwig, 
his generous patron, words breathlessly watched for, 
yet only audible to a few. Next came a troop of young 
maidens with flowers, headed by a poetess, who recited 
a poem of her own composition ; after which the 
maidens formed in a circle round Cornelius, and his 
wife came down from the gallery to keep him out of 
mischief. She is the painter's third wife, report says ; 
is an Italian, and twenty -two. Now came singing, 
Mendelssohn's " Sons of Art," and the " Cornelius- 
Lied," a parody of Prince Eugene, written for a Munich 
festival in 1835, and glorifying modern German Art 
under the leadership of Cornelius, and the patronage of 
King Ludwig, with its triumph against the perukes. 
With this the formal part of the feast came to an end ; 
Cornelius and the elders left, and the fun grew fast and 
furious. Artists got up on chairs and made speeches, 
one preached a sermon in verse, another a sermon in 
prose, for which some lines made by the hero of the 

g 2 



130 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



evening served as a sort of text. A dramatic perform- 
ance was organised, which lasted three quarters of an 
hour. Songs and toasts, mirth and frolic, went on till 
deep into the night, and it is not known when the last 
guest quitted the room. The success of the feast was 
complete, and could not but strike me very favourably. 
The hearty appreciation of an artist to whom Munich 
has only a divided claim, the entire burial of animosi- 
ties, and the catholic sympathy of all the different 
schools, impressed me with a pleasant sense of brother- 
hood in art, and the sight of the man who had founded 
all these schools, who had been master of Kaulbach, 
and is now looked up to as originator and instigator of 
the whole life of German painting, carries me back in 
thought to the great men of Italy, and the bands of 
pupils who owed half their eminence to their master. 
We see all these men, some of them already at the 
height of celebrity, some rapidly attaining an enviable 
position, some feeling truer stirrings of genius than 
can be given by success, uniting to applaud with one 
voice a man with whom they have so little in common, 
whose style is so entirely different from the styles of all 
the rising schools, and w 7 hose authority is daily being 
sapped by the influence of France and Belgium. His 
return to Germany at this time is like the last public 
appearance of Louis XIV., yet the artists are more 
grateful to their former sovereign, than the people of 
France to that departed greatness. 

It may be well to let this feast serve as a peg to hang 
some reflections on, with regard to the state of that art 
which is derived from Cornelius, and with regard to the 



CAUSE OF THE ENTHUSIASM. 



131 



master's own works in Munich. Art may be but a 
small portion of daily life, as has been said of litera- 
ture; but it is certainly the most prominent part of 
Munich activity. It is the artistic reputation of Mu- 
nich that brings so many strangers to visit the town, 
much as they may be disappointed by all collections, 
save the old picture gallery. The artistic reputation of 
Munich is supported by the residence and energy of 
nearly a thousand painters, although the patronage of 
the inhabitants is miserably small, and the taste of the 
population very little developed. Art cannot but have 
its effect in leading strangers to take up their residence 
in Munich, as it affords them at least a refuge from 
utter stagnation, and a sense of something going on. 
And as the works of the lesser artists are constantly 
exhibited in the Art Union, which has a fresh supply of 
pictures every week, as the studios are generally open 
with sufficient freedom, and the greater works are 
almost invariably shown to the public on their comple- 
tion, there is a decided link between the artists and the 
population. If people confine their study of art to a 
weekly visit to the Kunst Verein, the fault lies with 
their own indifference, not with their opportunities. 

But this branch of the subject must be touched upon 
later. At present I am engaged with the works of 
Cornelius. If a stranger had been present at this 
feast, he would doubtless have inquired for the works 
that had caused the enthusiasm he had witnessed, the 
speeches and songs he had heard. And he would cer- 
tainly go to see these works with some pre-conceived 
idea of the greatness of their painter. It would matter 



132 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



little to him to be told that the man whom Munich had 
feasted and toasted was represented by pictures very- 
much inferior to those in Berlin and Home ; he would 
naturally seek on the spot the cause of its excitement. 
And I fear he would be much disappointed. I confess 
that I am very much in that position. Till I was pre- 
sent at the Cornelius feast I never wearied myself with 
studying his works, and now that I wish to ascertain 
the secret of his fame, his works in Munich are the 
only ones accessible to me. I am willing to admit that 
those in Berlin are vastly superior, so long as I do not 
see them. With Cornelius, unfortunately, seeing is dis- 
believing. His chief paintings in Munich are the fres- 
coes in the Ludwig's Kirche, of which the Last Judg- 
ment is entirely his work ; the frescoes in the Glypto- 
thek, partly his work, and partly the work of his scho- 
lars ; and the Loggie of the Pinacothek, which were 
painted from his designs. 

In judging the works of Cornelius one must neces- 
cesarily revert to first principles, and ask what is the 
object of painting. Is it not to express your own 
thoughts and feelings so as to act on other men ? The 
secret of the success of the greatest painters lies in this, 
we seem to read their heart or their mind in all their 
pictures. The depth of feeling in the early painters 
more than excuses their technical imperfections; we 
find that there is something below the surface, and we 
study their works the more carefully that they are not 
able to dispense with our labour. But when we come 
down to more recent times among painters who had 
nothing to say, but an admirable power of saying it, 



THE GERMAN REVIVAL. 



133 



who adopted the thoughts of their progenitors, and put 
them clearly on the canvas, we turn away without a 
word. Who that has mastered an original cares for a 
loose translation ? And yet the later artists, neglecting 
the first requisite, were more aw r ake to the second. 
They saw that to act on others you must of necessity 
please, and they only forgot that in making pleasure 
the sole object, the mission of painting was abandoned. 
The early painters gave their own feelings without suf- 
ficiently acting on others ; the latter tried to act on 
others without expressing any feelings at all. Tech- 
nical perfection is only too apt to supplant what it is 
meant to convey. The revival of Cornelius was appa- 
rently based on this principle, and his aim was to emu- 
late the elder painters, by forsaking the path their suc- 
cessors had travelled. Unfortunately he has forgotten 
both the requirements of painting ; he neither expresses 
his own feelings, nor does he give pleasure. 

To limit the action of painting to its power of giving 
pleasure is not to confine the art in too narrow a com- 
pass. You are left free to choose through the whole 
range of pleasures of which the human mind is capable. 
You may begin w r ith the mere sensuous pleasure of un- 
cultivated minds, and rise gradually to the highest plea- 
sure of the soul that can be felt by the most refined. 
How many different chords are struck by Correggio, 
from pure maternal love and childish frolic to perfect 
beauty of form and to the " strongest of human in- 
stincts " in its most varied phases ! What soul is not 
awed by the grandeur of Titian, or impressed by the 
vigour of Michael Angelo ? And yet how different is 



134 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the path of these painters from the quiet, retired walk 
of Francia and Perugino. These are like the meditative 
figures of monks you see pacing their cloister with an 
occasional ramble into the garden that forms the court, 
while the others plunge into the heart of human action, 
and feel the wildest pulses of excitement. And the 
result of this divergence is, that each one is genuine 
throughout, each one feels what he paints. So long as 
the painter feels himself he can make others feel, be it 
in a limited degree, and in a future age. So long as he 
expresses his feelings his work is not wasted, and how- 
ever abstruse his feelings may be, the true expression of 
them can hardly fail to find favour. But when once an 
artist steps outside the circle that bounds him, and 
attempts to reason by means of his art without observ- 
ing its rules, to make music a mathematical science, and 
painting the black board accompaniment of a class-room, 
he ceases to please, he loses all command over the feel- 
ings, and his aim is no longer artistic. It is idle for a 
painter to plead that the great masters did thus, and 
that he must follow their example. The great masters 
were great because they spoke their feelings so that the 
world would listen to them, and you must follow their 
example in this if you would hope to rival them. " If 
one has the spirit of a composer," said Mozart, "one 
writes because one cannot help it." 

Perhaps it would have been better for Cornelius if 
the great masters had never existed. He might have 
then employed his real powers, which are considerable, 
in something better than imitation. As it is, with such 
splendid examples before him, he has fallen into an 



VARIATIONS IN PAINTING. 



135 



error to which artists of all kinds are liable. Nothing is 
more common than for a man to be impressed by the 
thoughts of others, to take them into his mind, and 
brood over them till they seem to become his own. 
How frequently it occurs in daily life that men repeat 
to you your expressions of a few days back, and tell you 
your own stories. We talk very much about plagiarism 
without thinking that this is so often the explanation of 
it. A young man with a love for poetry is moved by 
the thoughts of a poet ; the thoughts take root in his 
mind, and gradually find an utterance. He thinks this 
utterance is due to himself alone, he is not conscious of 
having borrowed. We see it again in modern music, 
when fine subjects are taken and treated, as the great 
composers ought to have treated them. And this is the 
explanation of the German art of the revival. A love of 
fine subjects and a genuine admiration of the old pain- 
ters was mistaken for independent inspiration. With 
this feeling the modern Germans produced a series of 
variations on all the old masters in turn. If a Last 
Judgment was to be painted, the question was, how had 
Michael Angelo painted it ; if a Holy Family, a clever 
compound of Raphael's early manner and Francia was 
passed off as original. The moderns never asked if they 
were fitted to paint such subjects as the Italians had 
painted them, if that style was suited to their taste and 
the taste of their country, or if they had to tell anything 
new or striking in that way which the Italians had left 
untold. The times have very much changed since the 
days of Raphael ; inquiry has told us much that was not 
known to the ripest scholars of that world; nothing is 



136 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the same, even in the most backward institutions and 
the most sluggish minds. Yet we have these men en- 
deavouring to paint as if the times could be rolled back 
again, and the same motives for action, the same views 
of surrounding things preserved unimpaired through the 
dust of three centuries. 

Now that the school of Kaulbach has succeeded to 
the school of Cornelius, and is being pushed out in its 
turn by the modern school formed on the dominant 
styles of the day, the French and Belgian, the merits of 
Cornelius are not seriously discussed, but are passed 
over with silent allowance. At the time of his great 
activity, however, his head might well have been turned 
by the praises bestowed on him, if the right balance had 
not been restored by the attacks of those w f ho took an 
opposite view. I find, for instance, in the letters of 
1833. Dr. Forster has just published, the subjoined 
judgment, important indeed as coming from an art 
critic of such reputation, the author of the History of 
German Art, and of so many further contributions to 
artistic knowledge. " Giulio Romano," says Dr. For- 
ster, " has served in many respects as a model for Cor- 
nelius, and the mythological paintings in the Glyp- 
tothek resembles those in the Palazzo del T, even down 
to the smallest details ; but Cornelius is throughout 
nobler and simpler than Giulio, though the graces of 
Raphael have not entirely deserted his chief scholar." 
The judgment of Byron was rather different. In a 
letter from Rome (where the painters had established 
themselves for greater facilities of copying) he writes, 
" There is a set of Germans here who let their hair grow 



BYRON AND HEINE. 



137 



to imitate Raphael. If they were to cut it off, make it 
into brushes, and paint like him, it would be more 
german to the matter/' Some time later Heine wrote 
of the dispersion of Cornelius' scholars in Munich, as if 
he had read Byron's allusion to the hair. 

" With Cornelius, too, was borne off 
His disciples' joined array, 
All its long hair it had shorn off 
And in that its virtue lay. 

u For he laid, the master knowing, 
Magic spells upon the hair, 
Truly, by the motion's showing, 
Something that had life was there." 

Has the strength of the school departed with its hair, 
or has Samson regained enough to bring down the 
temple about the ears of the Philistines ? The works 
he has left in Munich date chiefly from his middle time, 
as the frescoes in the Glyptothek were finished in 1830, 
and those in the Ludwig's Kirche within the next ten 
years. There is no lack of strength in these produc- 
tions ; in truth, the power displayed might aptly lead to 
a comparison with Samson, but out of the strong comes 
forth no sweetness. It is merely as a duty that the 
student of art goes to look on Cornelius; no charm 
attends the study, no pleasure is derived from it. Who 
can feel that enthusiasm before these cold academical 
labours that trained minds feel before the works of old 
masters, as Thackeray has so admirably shown us in 
Clive Newcome ? The great merit claimed for Corne- 
lius by an orthodox critic is, that he has translated the 



138 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Greek figures into old German in his frescoes for the 
Glyptothek, and with the originals before you in the 
sculptures you are doubly inclined to resent the trans- 
lation. It might be said, with equal truth, that in the 
Last Judgment the painter has translated Michael 
Angelo into Cornelius. I confess that I am always pre- 
disposed against painters who have no sense of colour, 
and my objection to Cornelius may partly be exagge- 
rated by the atrocity of his colouring. But, surely, if a 
man has a power of drawing and an entire absence of 
the instinct of colour, he should confine himself to car- 
toons, which are willingly enough accepted in Germany, 
and should find colourists to do the painting for him. 
Michael Angelo was not too proud to employ the ser- 
vices of Sebastian del Piombo for what was beyond 
himself, and Michael Angelo's translator would have 
done well to follow the example. For not only does 
the colour of the w orks of Cornelius give no pleasure, it 
gives pain. It is not a negative quality, but a positive. 
It is not like the light coating of indifferent colour laid 
on by painters who, wanting any decided sense, are wise 
enough to avoid making their want conspicuous ; it 
challenges condemnation by its obtrusiveness, and sets 
one's teeth on edge by its badness. The brickdust and 
tiles that do duty for the different shades of red, the 
execrable hue given to flesh, the predominance of 
painful blue, would make a Venetian frantic. If any- 
thing were needed to distinguish our pre-Raphaelites 
from those of Germany, this colouring would suffice. 

Some would urge as an excuse for the execrable colour 
of the frescoes in the Glyptothek, that the example of 



MODERN MYTHOLOGY. 



139 



Giulio Romano is not favourable. I grant the proposi- 
tion; but I do not see that it proves anything for 
Cornelius. There was no necessity for him to copy 
Giulio Romano even down to his defects. If he could 
not work without a model, there is surely no want of 
classical painting to serve him as model. Besides, we 
must remember that he is much nobler and simpler 
than Giulio Romano, and whatever can be said against 
the chief scholar of Raphael, it cannot be said that he 
ever produced such colour as that on the walls of the 
Glyptothek. There is some classical feeling in the 
classical paintings of Giulio Romano, but there is not 
a jot of it in these frescoes. Neither Greek form nor 
Greek spirit are preserved, though there is an open 
imitation of Greek sculpture. Ganymede feeding the 
Eagle is an exact reproduction of one of Thorwaldsen's 
works, and single figures might be proved identical 
with familiar statues. The introduction of copies from 
sculpture and anatomical design is often a great blemish 
in Cornelius, the figures are put in without regard to 
fitness of time and place, and the harmony of the whole 
is sacrificed to a display of drawing. Of the two rooms 
in the Glyptothek, the one which is devoted to heathen 
mythology is far better than the other which contains 
the tale of Troy. The marriage of Neptune and Am- 
phitrite indeed is poor ; the female faces are ugly, and 
their German cast of features with copious flaxen hair 
destroys any truth to Greek nature that the grotesque 
dolphin might have preserved. In the picture of Olym- 
pus, Hebe is pretty, and there is a strange introduction 
of character in the right-hand corner, the face of the 



140 



SOCIAL LirE IN MUNICH. 



old man peeping over Silenus. But of the three the 
descent of Orpheus is the best, and the right hand side 
of that picture can safely be commended. Some of the 
Danaides are actually pretty girls, especially the second 
face from the front, and the female figure leaning 
agaiust the balustrade of Pluto's throne. Cerberus 
dropping to sleep, one mouth still barking faintly, and 
the Furies sinking on their iron beds with the snakes 
uncurling, show considerable attempt at preserving the 
local character, though it can scarcely be necessary to 
make them so ugly. Pluto himself is a mistake, the 
sort of figure that would be cut by a tenth-rate Ger- 
man actor undertaking the part. The ceiling of the 
gods' room is well painted with lunettes, the Sun God 
in his chariot drawn by four spirited Greek horses, the 
beautiful moon drawn by kids. One of the steeds 
stands straight out from the wall, like that noble 
white horse of Parmigiano, in the church at Parma; 
and the life and energy that old sculptors give the 
horse are perfectly preserved. Painful as it always is 
to look at ceilings, I recommend the study of this ; the 
animals, horses, kids, owls, are quite a relief after the 
figures in the hall of Troy. 

The hall of the Trojan war, says a German authority, 
is the most marvellous and magnificent in its composi- 
tion. I consider it the most hideous that ever was 
painted. It is almost a penance to dwell on the fres- 
coes, and save some salient faults, impossible to re- 
member them. Mr. Gladstone is indignant at the 
treatment of the Trojan story in Troilus and Cressida, 
and carries his wrath so far as to doubt that Shakspeare 



THE TALE OF TROY. 



141 



was author of the play. What would he say to Corne- 
lius's version? It is hard to say which is the most 
offensive, the want of dignity in the men, or the want 
of beauty in the women. Who would recognise Helen 
(the German guide-book takes care to remind us that 
she is the beautiful Helen) in the ugly crying woman 
clinging to the pillar on the right hand side of the 
picture of the destruction of Troy? Who would re- 
cognise Achilles in the long-limbed, long-nosed, weedy- 
looking spoony in the opposite picture ? In that one, 
indeed, there is this merit, that Briseis is pretty and 
Minerva has black hair. But Briseis is put in the 
corner of the picture where she might be passed over, 
and the ugly parts are thrust into the middle where 
they must be seen. The same partiality for corners is 
seen in the frescoes in the hall of the Gods, but in the 
other two frescoes in the Trojan hall there is not even 
this redeeming point. The colour of the fight for Pa- 
troclus is so bad that the design has to endeavour to 
keep pace with it, and the obtrusive anatomy in the 
destruction of Troy is only equalled by the utter want 
of fidelity. After waging a war of ten years to recover 
the most beautiful of women, it is hardly in keeping 
with the character of Menelaus to make him neglect 
Helen in order to gain possession of Polixena. 

Even in assigning these paintings a modicum of praise, 
I believe it is open to dispute how far it is deserved. 
A severe critic might allege that the utter badness of 
the greater part makes us too favourable to some minor 
excellences, which stand out in the more striking relief 
as they are so much superior to what surrounds them. 



142 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



But this is too great a refinement for me, and I 
own my inability to conduct such an investigation. 
When a picture is before us, we naturally judge it by a 
pre-conceived standard, and pronounce it good or bad 
accordingly. But when there are great inequalities in 
a picture we can only judge them by the rest of the 
picture ; and though they may be so much better than 
the rest as to merit praise in comparison, they may be 
much below our standard, and, if judged separately, 
might have been condemned. We remember the story 
in Bacon of the man who ran badly one day in green, 
and ran worse the next day in yellow, that it might be 
said some one had run worse than the green. I doubt, 
however, if such an attempt would answer in painting. 
Certainly one judges the works of Cornelius in Munich 
by what predominates in them, and there is less danger 
of our rating his merits too highly than of our involving 
the whole work in too sweeping a condemnation. The 
paintings on the Loggie of the Pinacothek show pretty 
clearly what he ought to have done, show the real bent 
of his mind, and the subjects in which he was interested. 
The enthusiasm that he felt for art was more directed 
to the artists who had excelled in it than to the art 
itself, and instead of showing that enthusiasm by copy- 
ing the works of these painters he should have painted 
their lives. It was not their subjects he felt, but their 
treatment of the subjects, and he necessarily fell into 
servile imitation when he endeavoured to reproduce 
what had pleased him in them. He took the same 
mistaken path that is taken by modern writers of 
religious poetry, who believe that by rendering the 



SCENES FROM THE LIVES OF PAINTERS. 143 

Psalms or parts of Scripture from noble prose into poor 
rhyme they are emulating David or Isaiah. He forgot, 
as they forget, that originality is the first requisite if you 
would have greatness, and this is the answer to the 
questions so often repeated ; why have we no high reli- 
gious art? why have we no good religious poetry? 
The pictures in the Loggie of the Pinacothek, which 
present scenes from the lives of painters, are far more 
valuable than the religious and mythological frescoes, 
on which the fame of Cornelius is supposed to rest, 
because we see that he felt his own subjects, "and not 
the treatment of them that others had adopted. 

I must own that I have scarcely the patience to de- 
scribe or to criticise Cornelius's Last Judgment in the 
Ludwig's Kirche. It is not enough to dismiss it with 
the remark, that it is an attempt at a literal reproduc- 
tion of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment in the Sis- 
tine ; an attempt which fails, in so much as Cornelius 
is inferior to Michael Angelo, and which ought to fail, 
as the duties of religious art are so entirely changed 
since Michael Angelo's time. The Last J udgment is 
not a subject to which any painter that ever lived can 
do justice, because it is a subject that no human being 
can conceive. The mind has wisely ceased its endea- 
vour to realise eternity, and the eye is as little able to 
command such a field as the world brought to be 
judged. If any pictorial representation were attempted 
of such a subject, it must necessarily be imperfect in 
the extreme, and the painter would have to choose be- 
tween omitting nine tenths of the figures, or crowding 
them into such a mass, that neither faces nor characters 



144 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



could be discerned. Martin's Last Judgment is a mob: 
Cornelius's is a little private performance, with perhaps 
fifty figures in all, and King Ludwig looking on as an 
impartial spectator. But the unfitness of the subject 
for pictorial treatment is not the only objection, the 
choice of a model is equally to be censured. As a dis- 
play of power, Michael Angelo's picture is very remark- 
able ; but neither Protestants nor Catholics are satis- 
fied with its rendering of the Last Judgment. Kugler, 
while praising the lower half of the picture, observes 
that the upper part is faulty, that the glory of heaven, 
the joy, and peace, and blessedness of the heavenly 
choirs are sought in vain ; " everywhere we meet with 
the expression of human passion, of human efforts. 
We see no choir of solemn tranquil forms, no harmo- 
nious unity of clear grand lines, produced by ideal 
draperies ; instead of these we find a confused crowd of 
the most varied movements, naked bodies in violent 
attitudes, unaccompanied by any of the characteristics 
made sacred by a holy tradition. Christ, the principal 
figure of the whole, wants every attribute but that of 
the judge; no expression of divine majesty reminds us 
that it is the Saviour who exercises this office. The 
upper half of the composition is in many parts heavy, 
notwithstanding the masterly boldness of the drawing ; 
confused, in spite of the separation of the principal 
and accessory groups ; capricious, notwithstanding a 
grand arrangement of the whole." A Catholic passed 
a more severe censure than this of the great German 
critic, saying, that if the glory were taken from the 
head of Christ, and the upper part somewhat altered, 



Cornelius's last judgment. 



145 



the picture might serve for an admirable representation 
of the war between Jupiter and the Titans. 

So far as I can remember, Michael Angelo is the last 
who has treated the subject, and if this be correct the 
inference to be drawn is not unimportant. The later 
painters admit their inability to deal with it, and what 
the successors of Michael Angelo left untouched might 
well be avoided by a modern. The Italian versions of 
the Last Judgment that remain are those of an earlier 
date ; the frescoes of Orcagna in the Campo Santa at 
Pisa, and a celebrated picture of Fra Angelico in the 
Academy of Florence. But though these differ very 
widely from Michael Angelo' s fresco, in one point they 
are analogous to it. The painters in selecting this sub- 
ject have only done so in order to express their own 
feelings. As Michael Angelo laid a stress on the lower 
part of his fresco, where energy and action were more 
in place than in the upper half, so in Fra Angelico's 
Last Judgment, the rapture of heaven and the blest is 
the prevailing sentiment. And the Italian painters 
generally made use of the religious scenes that were 
assigned to them, as opportunities for displaying the 
bent of their minds, and for conveying indirectly with 
all possible freedom what they were not allowed directly 
to express. For instance, who does not see that the 
Venetian painters graft Venice upon Jerusalem ? Paul 
Veronese paints the Crucifixion merely to show Vene- 
tian senators and grandees presiding at it, and to accu- 
mulate his favourite dresses and colours, his pomp and 
magnificence on a subject in which an ascetic artist sees 
nothing but the intensest suffering. At that time no- 

H 



146 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



thing further was demanded. But with our increased 
desire for truth we insist on each scene being repro- 
duced as it may be supposed to have taken place, and 
we revolt against anything conventional. Perhaps we 
carry this too far, even as regards feeling : we certainly 
carry it too far as regards dress and accessories. Yet 
it has one good effect on painters, that it makes them 
study their subject with some independence of thought, 
and does not leave them free to draw on an early master 
for every line, for details as well as for inspiration. On 
this rock Cornelius has split, and we ought to be grate- 
ful to our principle, that it preserves us from such 
paintings as his Last Judgment. 

The whole work is inspired by Michael Angelo, and 
the sentiment of it is a confused recollection of Italian 
sentiment. Not being able to copy Michael Angelo's 
Christ, Cornelius has given us a figure which is even 
more conventional than a literal copy would have been. 
The failure of his master taught him timidity. After 
what has been said and written against the Christ of 
the Sistine no one would venture to adopt it ; but 
after such wholesale copying of the rest of Michael 
Angelo's picture, Cornelius had scarcely the right to 
stop short. We look up expecting to see Michael 
Angelo's Christ as a natural consequence of the lower 
part, and we are disappointed. The recollections of the 
Sistine are so numerous, that we ask the painter to 
trust entirely to his memory. And yet it is only neces- 
sary to compare the two to see that we do Cornelius 
injustice. The lower half of his Last Judgment is 
really no copy of the lower half of Michael Angelo's. 



NO COPY AFTER ALL. 



147 



Where is the animation and life, the admirable figure 
of Charon and the oar raised to strike ? Cornelius is 
far more composed and decorous. Strictly speaking, it 
is not so much a plagiarism from Michael Angelo's one 
picture that this fresco shows, as a general feeling for 
Michael Angelo. The anatomical display in the lower 
half strikes us not as love for anatomy, but love for 
Michael Angelo's anatomy. The introduction of King 
Ludwig, crowned with laurel and looking forbidding, is 
a departure from the text of the original, and a remi- 
niscence of various painters. But the picture is in all 
other points true to the narrow streak of inspiration. 



CHAPTER IX. 



KAULBACH. 

Before proceeding to a general survey of the present 
state of art in Munich, we must pause before a great 
name. As pupil of Cornelius, Wilhelm von Kaulbach 
deserves to be mentioned immediately after his master, 
and in dealing with Munich he must have a chapter to 
himself. 

And first a word of caution, which no doubt will be 
needed. The reader must not for a moment suppose 
that Kaulbach is judged as a painter, that is as an artist 
possessing a sense of colour. This highest excellence 
must, unfortunately, be put out of the question, and 
the painter considered merely in the quality of draughts- 
man. I believe he acknowledges himself that he is 
more of a sculptor than painter, and that the words 
placed by the Danish poet in the mouth of Michael 
Angelo would not be inappropriate in his mouth. 

" I am no painter, no, not I — I know it. 
I am a sculptor. What of sculpture's art 
In painting can be used, why, that is mine ! 
In drawing and design I stand alone, 
But as for dipping in the paint pot, zounds !" * 

* Oehlenschlager's Correggio, translated by Martin. 



PATRONAGE AND TEACHING. 



149 



It is unfortunate that an artist so evidently pre-disposed 
to drawing should not be allowed to follow the beat of 
his genius. There are enough painters in the world 
without pressing others into their ranks, and a good 
drawing is in its way as perfect and as pleasing as a 
painting. A man with Kaulbach's astonishing power 
should rather have been employed in producing works 
in which his power could be freely displayed, than in 
making vain attempts which were not smiled on by 
nature, and were eclipsed by the works of inferior men. 
Injudicious patronage, or rather blindness of patronage, 
diverted the artist from his true career, and defective 
teaching contributed to lead him astray. It is a ques- 
tion if King Ludwig's patronage did Kaulbach more 
harm than the teaching of Cornelius, and yet it is a 
question what he might have been without his patron 
and his teacher. No doubt many artists are spoiled by 
unintelligent support, and many by imperfect tuition. 
But how many more are extinguished by the want of 
support, or the want of tuition? If the greatest men 
owe it to the force of their genius that they have had the 
strength to overcome impediments, it is necessary that 
the weaker should sink under them. The English artist 
who has to fight up to a position without aid from above 
looks longingly to the more extended patronage of the 
Continent, and to the monarchs who make it their busi- 
ness to nourish art from the roots. But the caprices, the 
ignorance, and the wilfulness of such patrons are left out 
of sight in the vision of their liberality. No one thinks 
that Genelli, with the truest power of decorative paint- 
ing, and the most thorough taste for mythology, was 



150 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



never once employed by King Ludwig, while Cornelius 
was retained to daub the walls of the Glyptothek. No 
one thinks that painters such as Moriz von Schwind 
have seen their works go away from Munich, while 
crowds of inferior pictures have been set up in the new 
Pinacothek. No one thinks of Kaulbach, a satirist and 
a designer scarcely inferior to the French, set to paint 
Apollo and the Muses on the ceiling of a concert-room, 
and the rivers of Bavaria in the arcades of the Hof- 
garten. 

One must bear in mind, whenever one feels dissatis- 
fied with Kaulbach, the disadvantages he has had to 
contend against. The temptations to which a man is 
exposed by education and patronage are often more 
fatal to genius than the trials of difficulty and neglect. 
A man often gains more knowledge of himself, and 
more reliance in his powers, when he is left to himself, 
than when he is fondled and pampered by unskilful 
judges. Some one says, 

"Too large a share 
Of harsh prosperity has some o'erthrown 

and it seems only fitting to ascribe the failure of many 
gifted artists to this reason. If you are taken up by a 
rich man you naturally submit your judgment to his ; 
if you are taken up by a great man you naturally follow 
in his track. But Kaulbach's faults are not entirely 
owing to others; I fear he must bear the charge of 
some of them himself. He is not the first who has 
taken a compound of intellect and fancy for imagina- 
tion, nor the first who has attempted subjects far be- 



raulbach's intellect. 



151 



yond him, believing his admiration of them was the 
same as inspiration. His astonishing power is enough 
to veil these defects from many ; no wonder, then, if it 
can veil them from him. Yet one cannot but feel a 
certain want in his great pictures, a searching, a dis- 
appointment, a question why does not this impress me 
as I feel that it should? The only answer that can be 
given is, that the painter has no real feeling for his sub- 
ject ; and in many of Kaulbach's more ambitious works 
this is only too apparent. It is the more apparent 
owing to his having chosen subjects which intellect 
alone is not competent to treat, and in which the want 
of feeling must be constantly manifest. A notable fea- 
ture in the history of modern art seems the intrusion of 
pure intellect into the domain of feeling. Many in- 
stances of it may be found in all branches of art, in 
music and poetry as well as in painting. But several 
of the intruders have been wise enough to withdraw after 
a short trial, and have attained eminence in the pur- 
suits for which they were more fitted. Kaulbach has 
unhappily been encouraged to persevere in a wrong 
course, and his fame must, more or less, depend on his 
occasional deviations. 

It is impossible to look at any of his pictures without 
being surprised by his intellectual power. It breaks 
through even in works least suited to any display of it, 
and in those where free scope is given it, the effect is 
astonishing. " The triumph of intellect " might be the 
label of his whole pictorial production. An Italian said 
of Goethe, " he thinks his feelings and the sentence 
is peculiarly applicable to Kaulbach, and explains the 



152 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



coldness all others but thinkers feel in his presence. 
To the applause of literary men he owes much of his 
reputation, and their applause is earned by his agree- 
ment with them. Mr. Palgrave has said that to look at 
the series of pictures in which the chief moments of the 
world's history are conveyed, is like reading a chapter of 
Herder or Hegel ; and without having ever read such a 
chapter one can conceive the truth of the simile. But 
this style of pictorial history writing, or rather literary 
historical painting, however it may please men of letters, 
is repugnant to artists. I have heard painters object to 
Kaulbach's works because they were literary pictures, 
aiming at the literary delineation of subjects instead of 
giving their feeling. To a painter there is an entire 
lack of unity in works thus conceived, and instead of 
forming a whole by virtue of the subject, the groups are 
detached and straggling. The great picture of the Fall 
of Jerusalem, which occupies a wall in the New Pina- 
cothek, and must necessarily be seen by all visitors to 
Munich, is much criticised on these grounds. There is 
a group of Christians departing ; another of the Wan- 
dering Jew and the Furies driving him out to wander ; 
another of the High Priest killing himself; another of 
the Roman army entering; another of the Prophets 
denouncing doom, and another of the Angels coming 
down to execute it. To a literary mind these groups 
are linked together in the harmony of the subject. All 
these things, did happen, or might well have happened, 
if not at the same moment, at least within a certain 
time. Given the Fall of J erusalem for the event, and 
these detached pictures rise naturally in the mind. 



PICTORIAL UNITY. 



153 



But a painter is not content to have the subject for the 
centre, he wants some centre on the canvas. If you 
are to paint a number of detached incidents which can- 
not be grouped, you must paint them in a series of 
detached pictures. It is impossible that all these things 
could have happened within the space of one canvas, 
and by crowding them all together, you give us not the 
Fall of Jerusalem but your recollections of it. Thus 
the words of one of the Fathers apply to the truth of 
pictorial representation, " sacr amentum veritatis unitas." 

Objection may also be taken to the groups severally. 
The Wandering Jew is really a stretch of the mind, and 
it may be doubted if any one in thinking of the Fall of 
Jerusalem would remember that legendary character. 
Why are the Christians going out so peacefully and 
undisturbed on the same side of the canvas as the 
brutal soldiery are entering? The device almost re- 
minds us of the impunity of fugitives in an opera, who 
stay singing for half an hour on the stage while the 
whole company is searching for them behind the scenes. 
But Kaulbach would probably answer such objection as 
he answered a question about his Battle of Salamis. 
Some one asked him what authority he had for bring- 
ing together all these characters and persons of such 
different times, — where did they ever come together? 
" In our memory," replied the painter. In any other 
country but Germany the answer would be considered 
conclusive. This arbitrary connection of all things, 
this habit of hooking anything he wants on to anything 
else, is one of Kaulbach's strangest characteristics, and 
a natural consequence of modern eclecticism. As Cor- 

h 2 



154 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



nelius brings in Hebe and Ganymede simultaneously, 
so his great pupil gives the reins to association. But is 
not this rather the same principle as that which pro- 
duced the ne plus ultra of eclecticism and association, 
that play in which all memorable events and personages 
are confused together, Packwood's Razor Strops and 
Magna Charta, ancient Romans and Knight Tem- 
plars ? 

It is much pleasanter to dwell on the undoubted ex- 
cellences of Kaulbach than to trace out his defects, 
and I do not wonder at the indiscriminate laudation 
sometimes bestowed on him. His great and genuine 
power of drawing, his wide sweep of fancy, and his 
restless intellect, are sufficient merits in themselves, 
and contribute to produce pictures that we cannot but 
admire. I have alluded to his chief faults, and I do 
not wish to be compelled to examine them more fully. 
But at the same time I protest against indiscriminate 
praise as no real tribute to any man, and even in allow- 
ing Kaulbach's beauties I shall do so with whatever 
reservation is needed. The works that I cannot ap- 
preciate I will dismiss from sight, the colossal mistakes 
of the Battle of Salamis, and kindred pictures which 
seem only executed as tours de force. I confess that I 
have never been across the street to look at the w r orks 
Kaulbach has executed in the manner of Cornelius. I 
have never even looked up at the roof of the concert- 
room in the Odeon, often as I have been waiting there 
without occupation, and it is only from guide-books 
and authorities that I know of the existence of such 
paintings. But Kaulbach's genuine works I value very 



CHILDREN. 



155 



highly indeed. His purely intellectual drawings, the 
illustrations to Reineke Fuchs, the Cartoon of the Re- 
formation, his fanciful drawings, especially all those in 
which children play a part, are perfect in their way. 
In them we do not miss the imagination that should 
have inspired his great historical pictures, nor the 
colour without which it is hard for a painting to excel. 
In all that regards children Kaulbach deserves a place 
not far below Correggio. It is perfectly right to talk 
of children as playing a part in his drawings ; you see 
them thoroughly at home there with all the funny ways 
and gestures and sportive extravagances that belong to 
them. If Correggio's exquisite cherubs are merely 
glorified children, Kaulbach/s children are cherubs 
come to earth. There are little tail-pieces in Reineke 
Fuchs of consummate merit and admirable expression, 
and Kaulbach's admirers speak of a children's frieze at 
Berlin in the warmest tones. One of his Goethe draw- 
ings represents Mignon singing, surrounded by a tribe 
of dear little faces, every one of which is true to the 
life, and perfect in childish merriment, or that serious 
attention which is almost more engaging. The bar- 
barous custom of swathing up babies in a cushion as 
if they were Esquimaux has no doubt acted on Kaul- 
bach, in forbidding him to rival the children in arms 
whom Correggio has made so lovely, and in restricting 
him to an age more matured. But what he has effected 
with the materials given him is perfect indeed. 

The illustrations to Reineke Fuchs are tolerably 
known in England, and are generally valued by us, 
and all out of Germany, as Kaulbach's chief title to 



156 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



distinction. I am inclined to agree with this verdict. 
It is true that the pictures are not the highest in aim 
or in thought that he has executed, but they are more 
carefully and truthfully expressed; they have more 
genuine meaning, and are more valuable as comments 
on the painter's own thoughts than the rest of his work. 
To satirise men as animals is not a new thought, of 
course ; but Kaulbach' s treatment is more or less new, 
and his object is his own. The especial value of such 
unlimited satire is, that you are sure to include many 
incidental points which were not your original objects, 
like a man hitting out wildly in a melee. It is an 
established rule, that any man may interpret any alle- 
gory in any way ; and in Germany the number of in- 
terpretations to which Faust and Hamlet have been 
subjected puts allegorical writing at a premium. If 
Kaulbach had the Emperor in view in his lion, and the 
Princes and Electors of the Empire in the subordinate 
but independent beasts, it must be owned that he chose 
a most telling parable, and one that his country might 
well take to heed. But as I have no wish to rival the 
expounders of kindred riddles, I will not speculate on 
the innermost meaning of the satire, the more that so 
many meanings are on the surface. Much of the 
satire is universal in its application, and much more, 
if not always certain of its aim, cannot fail to be so in 
the present state of Europe. Many of the exaggera- 
tions of Germany which Kaulbach has painted exist 
among ourselves, in a smaller degree one would hope. 
The curses of all power, unreasoning obedience, and 
ultra-subservience, do not belong to that country alone 



MEN AS ANIMALS. 



157 



in which kings and nobles are found in every district, 
nor is brutality on the part of soldiers and school- 
masters restricted to Munich and Augsburg. Hypo- 
crisy, gluttony, and folly of all kinds, are unfortunately 
inseparable from human nature; many men put them 
on with their bodies, and their mind is not equal to a 
struggle against the law of their members. 

Whether general or individual, Kaulbach's satire is 
worth careful inspection. How telling is the first 
picture in Reineke Fuchs, where the Hon summons his 
court, the hog with a large white cravat, and the 
chamberlain's key stuck in his girdle, laying his hand 
on his heart, the deeply reverent upward gaze of the 
ox as he kisses the monarch's hand, the stag a foolish 
young officer without an idea beyond his sword, the 
priestly panther with a suspicious side-look at the lion 
out of the corner of his eye. Then we have the fox 
as a schoolmaster teaching the hares, and the priestly 
panther coming up just in time to save the throat of 
one of the scholars. The picture of a school was never 
perhaps more faithfully presented, the little hares re- 
verently and attentively learning their grammar, one 
of them drawing, all with the awed look of incipient 
scholars. The fox himself might easily stand for a 
schoolmaster of the old kind, and the likeness he bears 
to a human face is very striking when you come to 
examine the details. His fierce eager mouth snatching 
up a slight mistake and pillorying it, his rather large 
wrinkled forehead, whiskers brushed away off the cheek, 
the skull-cap on his head, and the long robe, with a 
book stuck into the waistband, are all thoroughly 



158 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



human, though without a tincture of humanity. The 
illusion is so perfect that only one touch more is re- 
quired to transform the fox into an actual schoolmaster. 
One cannot but think that the face is a portrait of some 
real person, especially as the fox's conduct is so exact 
a counterpart of the conduct of a schoolmaster at Augs- 
burg of whom I heard the other day that he sent a boy 
home with half his ear torn off. Another page, and we 
have the cock pleading before the King with Demos- 
thenic action, pointing to the corpse of one of his wives, 
and impeaching the fox. The bull-dog, who is the 
lion's cook, stands with his mouth wide open in horror 
behind the throne, the mitred goat, in bishop's robes, 
sits calmly looking on, reminding us of Sydney Smith's 
horror at being blandly absorbed by bishops, the two 
moles as grave-diggers, the badger as relative of the 
fox turning away Avith pain and pious awe. Again we 
have the fox as penitent before the cock, the cock a 
country squire or magistrate with important spectacles, 
the fox telling his beads with downcast head, and thick 
bushy tail curling up between his legs. The picture of 
the fox stealing a fowl from the priest's table is worthy 
of Hogarth. The anguish on the face of the priest, 
throwing himself forward to save the dish on which he 
had counted the whole day, is admirable. Look how 
he overbalances himself, knocks over the table, spilling 
salt without a thought of the ill-luck attending it, while 
his chair knocks against the shelves behind, and sends 
the contents of all the dishes, soup, liquids, solids, 
pouring on his back and down his neck. In the hang- 
ing scene, which comes early in the book, and which 



BEASTS MAKING BEASTS OF THEMSELVES. 159 

makes us wonder how the fox will escape, as we feel 
certain that he must though the halter is round his 
neck, see the portly agricultural ox with his great shirt- 
collar, like the pictures of John Bull, and the ape with 
the thorough face of a convict unawed by the fearful 
example, the exultation of the fox's enemies, his own 
edifying repentance, and the general detestation of the 
animal world. In the next one, the lion on his throne, 
and the ass consulting a long genealogical table, which 
he unrols and handles like a Dryasdust, his pen stuck 
behind his ear and his dimmed spectacles on his 
learned nose. The grand feast at Court is full of tell- 
ing hits against various vices. The lion and lioness 
are fondling each other on a couch, while the ape ties 
their tails together without their noticing it. The ox 
sits like an alderman after a feast with the kid on his 
lap. The tiger blows out his brains with a pistol, the 
elephants hold bottles of champagne in their trunks and 
pour the contents into their mouths, the mastiffs gorge, 
the donkey waves his champagne glass, and sings, " We 
won't go home till morning." Is not this the custom 
at feasts ? But it is worth observing that the lion and 
lioness are stretched on a couch formed of deer skins, 
which, like the tiger skins and bear skins one sees, have 
the heads left on them. The deers' heads hang over 
the sides of the couch, and tears are running down 
their cheeks. Close by lies a book which the lion 
seems to have flung aside, the title of it is " Le Roi 
s' amuse, tragedie, par Victor Hugo." Who is not fami- 
liar with this kind of allusion ? How many instances 
Hogarth has given of it. Even now it is, perhaps, the 



160 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



most successful form of allegory, whether in this picture 
of Kaulbach's or in the next, where the fox brains the 
rabbit before a way-side shrine, the Standen der Andacht 
lying on the ground. The fox taking leave of his 
family, the badger with a pipe stuck through his hat, 
and ears of corn peeping from his pocket, the lion's 
domestic arrangements, the cranes as physicians, with 
swords and cocked hats under their arms, looking very 
judiciously at the wolfs sufferings, the lion's illness, 
and the fox holding up a large bottle to the light in 
imitation of a well-known Dutch picture, the leopard as 
soldier keeping the lists for fox and wolf, and chucking 
a village maiden, a picture of injured innocence, under 
the chin, the triumphal entry of the fox and his inves- 
titure by the lion, are some of the figures and incidents 
in the other illustrations which have struck me as 
peculiarly noticeable. But the whole series may well 
be studied,, and cannot fail to give great pleasure from 
its ingenuity, as well as from its wit and the power of 
design. 

Although Kaulbach's drawings of Reineke Puchs are 
supposed to illustrate Goethe's poem, they take a very 
independent position, and open an immense field which 
might reasonably be worked by others. I have some- 
where met with a statement that an English body of 
painters refused to take subjects from poetry, because 
they preferred to work independently, and not submit 
their imagination to that of the poet. But the draw- 
ings of Kaulbach show that the painter may be quite 
independent of the poet. The barest text in the book 
is sufficient to suggest the whole mass of detail, while 



GOETHE GALLERY. 



161 



at the same time the painter's wandering fancy is kept 
within those bounds it is too often tempted to exceed. 
The complaint of the priest, u He stole the fowl from 
my table ! " is the sole warrant in the text for Kaul- 
bach' s animated picture of Hogarthian confusion. No 
one can deny that the painter's imagination was unfet- 
tered here, or assert that it was only secondary to the 
poet's. Nor need any one fear that he will be counted 
as a mere interpreter or translator, so long as he can 
furnish such illustrations as these. The Goethe Gallery 
of Kaulbach may be taken as a sort of return to his 
earlier love, but it is by no means as perfect as the 
Keineke Fuch's drawings. The size of the Goethe 
Gallery almost excludes delicacy, and the figures always 
seem gigantic. Heine has especially praised Goethe 
for painting people smaller than the size of life, instead 
of giving them enormous proportions, and Kaulbach 
has missed this aspect of Goethe's creatures. " Don't 
you know," asks Heine, "that it is much easier to 
create these ideal images that you boast so highly, these 
statues worthy to be placed on the altar of virtue and 
honesty, than the small worldly beings, sinners stained 
with mortal infirmity, which Goethe gives us in his 
works ? Don't you know that mediocre painters gene- 
rally stretch across their canvas the figures of saints as 
large as life, while it needs a great master to paint with 
truth and expression a little Spanish beggar hunting for 
vermin, a Flemish peasant having a tooth pulled out, or 
one of those ugly old women whom we see in the easel 
pictures of the Dutch school. In art it is easier to re- 
present what is grand and terrible, than what is small 



162 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



and agreeable. The Egyptian sorcerers imitated several 
of the miracles of Moses, the serpents, the blood, 
even the frogs; but when it came to miracles which 
seemed much easier, the production of insects, for ex- 
ample, they avowed their inability, and said, c that is the 
finger of God ! 3 " 

Probably Kaulbach was ignorant of this simile of 
Heine's, or he would not have sacrificed the natural 
grace of Goethe's characters by adding to their stature. 
With many charming details, these Goethe drawings 
are often unpleasing, owing to the great proportions of 
the centre figures, and it is not easy to do them justice. 
The one which represents Herrmann and Dorothea 
coming down the hill side in the evening, the lights 
beginning to shine through the village windows, would 
be charming but for this defect. As it is, the effect 
conveyed is that of a giant and giantess striding down 
a mountain, from shelf to shelf of rocky terraces, 
which to the eye seem made for a giant's staircase. 
And Lotte cutting bread and butter for the children, 
has the proportions of the ogress feeding Hop 'o my 
Thumb and his comrades. In the engraving one ceases 
to perceive this fault, and the grace and delicacy of the 
design are clearly perceptible. But in the drawings 
themselves, and in the admirable photographs which 
reproduce the drawings so exactly, that as some one has 
said, you can see the strokes of the pencil in them, the 
size is a great objection. 

It may be interesting to compare Kaulbach's draw- 
ing of Faust and Gretchen with that of an English 
artist who was long resident in Munich, and who is 



FAUST AND GRETCHEN. 



163 



now a conspicuous exhibitor in the Old Water Colour 
Society. Mr. Burton's Meeting of Faust and Gretchen 
was in the International Exhibition, and Kaulbach's 
companion drawing is tolerably well known from the 
photograph in the Bavarian Court. Mr. Burton's pic- 
ture is eminently dramatic. By the action both of 
Faust and Gretchen, you see clearly that Faust has 
attempted to catch hold of her arm, or to put his arm 
round her waist ; but Gretchen has avoided it by a sort 
of forward spring. Perhaps the energy of Faust is a 
little too decided, and the flutter of Gretchen a little 
too exaggerated. But the admirable colour, so rich 
and unusual in water, the power of the male figure, 
and the pretty young girl, both faces being tho- 
roughly original, in spite of the natural temptation 
to express a familiar character by a familiar type, 
give the picture a value of its own. Kaulbach's draw- 
ing on the other hand is steeped in conventionality, and 
seems as if the artist was afraid to depart from the 
usages of Faust's illustration. Instead of an overplus of 
energy he has given us unbroken repose. Faust is a 
noble, dignified philosopher, above human weakness, 
above any stimulant to action. He stands peaceably at the 
corner of the street admiring the figure that has passed, 
and explaining his admiration to himself and Mephis- 
topheles, as he might lecture on a Greek statue. On 
the other hand, the young girl, with her profuse flaxen 
plaits and German face, walks calmly and deliberately 
on, unfluttered, unruffled. I need hardly ask which of 
the two pictures is truer to nature. But which is truer 
to Goethe ? One is always accustomed to regard Faust 



164 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



as a philosopher, whether he is soliloquising in his study, 
or hiding from Gretchen in the garden. But it must 
be remembered that the first step to Faust's enjoyment 
of life is the putting off his former self, the shedding 
his skin of abstract learning, and putting on vigorous 
youth. The witch, when he drank the magic potion a 
moment before, said, that with that draught in his body 
he would see a Helen in every woman ; and his first 
words to Mephistopheles after Gretchen had passed, 
were so decided that the devil was taken aback. It is 
evident that Goethe did his utmost to get rid of the 
doctorial element in Faust, by making him act as unlike 
a learned professor as possible. Nor is the dignity and 
reserve of Gretchen in the drawing at all borne out by 
her speeches in the poem. Mr. Burton has far more 
truly and more pleasingly pourtrayed her fluttering off 
like a frightened dove. And yet so important an ele- 
ment in art-criticism is the national element, that I 
imagine Germans would prefer the philosophic self-sus- 
tained rendering of Kaulbach. Singularly enough, 
Mr. Burton, who has so ably departed from tradition 
in his view of Faust and Gretchen, has obeyed it in his 
view of Mephistopheles. Kaulbach is more consistent 
here, and to my mind both of them are wrong. The 
conventional portrait of Mephistopheles, with his hook 
nose and diabolical smile, his cap with the feather and 
his short mantle, is as familiar as an historical person- 
age, and the disguise ceases to be a disguise. It would 
be excessively inconvenient to drag about a gentleman 
like that in your train, and he would soon be so well 
known that he could not furnish any assistance. We 



THE TIME OF THE REFORMATION. 165 

have gradually revolted against the conventional ex- 
pression of all other characters of whom no authentic 
likeness exists, and Kaulbach himself has ventured to 
give us a new reading of Shakespeare in the face of 
contemporary portraits. But Mr. Burton might have 
been expected to give us an original Mephistopheles 
before Kaulbach. 

The admirers of Kaulbach may object to my treat- 
ment of him, inasmuch as I confine myself to his less 
important works, his illustrations of others, and make 
no mention of his great achievements. It certainly 
does seem ungracious to do so, and would be unpardon- 
able if I had access to his great works at Berlin as I 
have to the engravings and photographs of his Goethe 
drawings. But my object is to reproduce the artistic 
life of Munich, and I cannot but exclude the works 
which are in other parts of Germany. A volume in 
itself might be made of the products of the modern 
German school of painting, but those products would 
have to be visited in many galleries. Although I have 
spoken unfavourably of KaulbacVs ambitious works as 
a whole, I am not blind to the merits of some of them. 
One especially may be described, as it was executed 
during my stay in Munich, the cartoon representing the 
period of the Reformation. The subject of this cartoon 
is better chosen than all the other subjects of the paint- 
ings in the Berlin Museum. For this one may well be 
allowed to form a gallery of distinguished contempora- 
ries, and nothing more is asked of it than to give us 
a panorama of those among whom the great religious 
change was effected. It is not the reformation itself, 



166 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



but the period of the reformation ; the men who were 
living around it as well as those who moved and had 
their being in it. Here, therefore, Kaulbach might 
give the reins to his fancy, being bound by no other 
chain but the portraits of the characters. Tt must be 
admitted that he has produced a noble collection of 
heads, a portrait gallery in which one would gladly 
linger. The arrangement of the cartoon is, to some 
extent, borrowed from the school of Athens, which, I 
presume, was unavoidable, In the centre, the figure 
from and to which everything radiates, Luther holding 
up the open Bible at the stretch of his arms ; on each 
side of him the work and teaching of Protestantism 
proceed, communion is given in both kinds, and the 
Word is expounded. Below, in the foreground, are 
two groups, the left-hand representing science, the right- 
hand group letters. Between them reclines Hans Sachs, 
the cobbler poet, counting the feet of his verses on his 
fingers, and reminding us rather too much of the 
Diogenes in Raphael's school of Athens by his attitude 
and posture. The literary group contains Shakspeare, 
Cervantes, Petrarch, Erasmus, Ulrich von Hutten, Pico 
di Mirandola : the scientific group, Columbus, Bacon, 
Vesalius, Harvey. On the steps, above these groups, 
we see Queen Elizabeth, Gustavus Adolphus, the war- 
riors and statesmen of the time. But to me the interest 
is chiefly divided between the two groups in the fore- 
ground, which were more advanced when I saw the 
cartoon, and which suggest much matter for discussion. 
The power and majesty of the figures and faces con- 
tained in these groups can hardly be overpraised. The 



COLUMBUS ANK SHAKSPEARE. 



167 



representation of Columbus is truly stupendous. He 
stands like a pillar of the world, towering far above all 
who surround him, in a posture of self- sustained ma- 
jesty, his hand resting on that part of the globe he has 
rescued from nothingness, though his wrists are fet- 
tered. But the grandeur of his look is beyond even 
that of his posture. His forehead rises in a mass of 
power, transcending in height and in command the 
greatest foreheads we know, and there is a look of reso- 
lution stamped in every line and feature. I know not 
if any authentic portrait exists from which this idea is 
taken, or if the painter has improved on his model. 
But be the representation authentic or purely imagi- 
nary, there can be no doubt of its grandeur. 

The novelty Kaulbach has introduced into his por- 
trait of Shakspeare is enough to petrify the commen- 
tators. The general expression of the face is preserved, 
but not one feature is the same as we are accustomed to 
see it. The shortness of Shakspeare's nose and the 
length of his upper lip have always been obnoxious to 
the advocates of a science of physiognomy, except to 
those mistaken few who raise blemishes to the rank of 
beauties. Kaulbach has endeavoured to reconcile Shak- 
speare' s physiognomy with his genius. The upper lip 
is very much shortened, and the nose is lengthened ; 
the forehead preserves its height, but takes quite a new 
form ; a fire and animation are given to the face which 
are altogether wanting in the Stratford bust and the 
early portraits. Kaulbach flatly refuses to accept the 
Stratford bust as a correct representation of Shakspeare ; 
he denies that King Lear could have come from such a 



168 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



face, and argues that it is his duty to convey the genius 
of the poet in reproducing his features. The result is 
that we have here such a Shakspeare as we could wish 
to have, a study for genius and animation, the fire of 
his mind bursting out at every pore, in the firm grip of 
the clenched hand and the firm set of the under thigh. 
Humanity generally will feel flattered by the portrait ; 
but what will the commentators say? The question of 
long upper lips has more than once been debated, and 
some consider them a necessary accompaniment of ge- 
nius. Carlyle has spoken in favour of them in one of 
his Essays as being a sign of power, and his own por- 
trait is a more important testimony. A writer in the 
Cornhill Magazine goes further, and assigns them to all 
men of genius, which can be proved to be an exaggera* 
tion. In great speakers length of upper lip would 
doubtless be indispensable, because without speech the 
oratorical faculty is incomplete. But in poets and 
artists there is no such need, and the long lip is not 
found in them generally. Kaulbach urges that the 
forehead is the seat of intellectual power, and that the 
possession of it is not affected by the lips. Be the 
question as it may, the departure from the traditional 
portrait is rather bold, and sticklers for Shakspeare 
are scarcely likely to pardon it. Ludicrously enough, 
the powerful legs that Kaulbach has given to the poet 
are equally liable to objection. Some commentator on 
the Sonnets discovered that Shakspeare was lame. 



CHAPTER X. 



MUNICH ARTISTIC. 

" When I said I would die a bachelor/' observes Bene- 
dick, " I did not think I should live till I were married." 
"When I undertook to give a general view of the art of 
Munich I did not think that the materials were beyond 
my reach. Without some guiding thought, or definite 
purpose, an extended survey of the production of such a 
town would necessarily be incomplete. It is not easy 
for any one to take stock of so many pictures which 
are not regularly exhibited at stated times, and the 
absence of well-known works to refer to would throw 
uncertainty on every judgment. Each successive Lon- 
don season serves as a landmark for the progress of the 
painters who exhibit in the Royal Academy, and a few 
days' study suffices to keep both Londoners and strangers 
from falling behind hand in knowledge of their national 
art. But in Munich the Kunst Verein is the only 
regular place of exhibition, and as pictures are sent 
there every week, and taken away at the end of a week, 
as the size of the rooms does not permit of large works 
being hung, and the bad arrangement is so notorious 
that the best painters regularly absent themselves, it 

i 



170 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



cannot be considered adequate for this purpose. By 
missing one week you may miss the best picture that 
has been produced during the year, and yet you may go 
week after week without seeing anything to reward 
your visit. If you happen on the good picture you are 
not struck with it as you might be from the want of 
anything with which you can compare it, and you may 
even do it the injustice of imagining that its merits 
proceed from the poverty of the works surrounding. 
Moreover, the first object of the Kunst Verein is to 
support poor artists, not to promote the cause of art. 
With this view the pictures that are bought by the 
Society are chosen according to the poverty of their 
painter, not according to their merits. In too many 
cases the mental poverty of the artists assisted is no 
less conspicuous than the real poverty which entitles 
them to support ; sometimes the one is the cause of the 
other. It is well to have an institution for the pur- 
pose of aiding strugglers in a laborious career, but it is 
scarcely well to unite this object with that of promoting 
the taste of the public. As the Kunst Verein is very 
largely attended, and all pictures bought by the joint 
committee of artists and amateurs are supposed to 
possess some merits, the standard of public taste is 
lowered by the very means that might be chosen to 
raise it. It is bad encouragement to a man who has 
no artistic power to buy his pictures, especially when 
you exhibit them freely with all the guarantee of a 
committee of judges and a public exhibition. 

In describing the New Pinacothek I have gone into 
details with some freedom, and my object in this 



GENERALITIES. 



171 



chapter is only to give general views of the state of 
art in Munich. It would be impossible to particularise 
with so vast a field before me, even if I were willing to 
sacrifice a considerable time to master all the details 
presented. My wish had been to give a fuller account 
of many of the chief painters in Munich than is to be 
found in any publication, but many reasons have in- 
duced me to abandon this idea. For to do it any 
justice a long and exclusive study would be needed, 
a study not pursued in galleries, but from one atelier 
to another, under circumstances of much difficulty, and 
without any certainty of a result. Men who have lived 
half their lives in Munich in the practice of art, who 
have gradually massed up their knowledge, and become 
familiar with styles and schools from daily observation, 
might give us interesting details and reliable principles ; 
but even then, in the absence of scholars, with the 
small interest large masses of men take in criticism 
which they cannot apply, such writings might be wasted. 
It may be pleasant for visitors to Munich to compare 
the pictures in the New Pinacothek with the accounts 
I have given, or for those at a distance to read a 
description of a famous gallery. But while one valet- 
de-place is left to take the stranger round the studios, 
a mere catalogue of those worth visiting would not be 
suited to my pages. 

The capricious selection of the New Pinacothek has 
been noticed in its place, though without remarking its 
widely pernicious effect on the general sphere of art. 
King Ludwig being till lately the only amateur in 
Munich, all pictures which he refused to place in his 



172 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



gallery liad to find purchasers in the other towns of 
Germany. Remembering that Piloty is Professor in 
the Munich Academy you look in vain for his Nero — 
a picture which, in spite of the heaviness of the colour 
and the theatrical exaggeration of the figures, shows 
more grapple, more feeling than the Wallenstein. . The 
reputation of Moriz von Schwind is almost unsupported 
in Munich. I may seem to do him injustice to those 
who rank him above Kaulbach, but in the absence of 
all his chief pictures no other course was open to me. 
It was not till after Genelli had left Munich that any 
of his pictures could be known to the public, nor are 
they known by royal repentance but by private en- 
couragement. These difficulties may serve as my ex- 
cuse for bareness of generalisation and want of detail. 

A great predominance of landscape is the first point 
that strikes one in a general view of the Munich school. 
Some men have attained eminence in this department : 
very many produce pleasing pictures, with or without 
striking characteristics. Not aiming high, landscapes 
are generally exempt from searching criticism, and as 
many scenes in Nature are attractive, though they do 
not attain to much beauty, so the unpretending sketches 
of landscape painters may please out of all proportion to 
their merits. The lakes and mountains of the Bavarian 
Highlands furnish scenes enough to employ the whole 
tribe of painters during the summer, and travellers are 
by no means loth to have the pleasantest bits of their 
tour recalled on the canvas. How powerful the attrac- 
tion of these scenes may be guessed from the fact, that 
the first picture sold in the International was a Bava- 



LANDSCAPE PAINTING. 



173 



rian landscape. At the same time the continual repe- 
tition of favourite lakes, or mountains, or groups of 
trees, is apt to become tiresome, especially as painters 
get mannered sooner than Nature. One cannot but 
recall the story told in Guy Livingstone of a scientific 
Frenchman and his abhorrence of the beautes cle la 
Nature, when one sees picture after picture taken up 
with the Konigssee and the Chiemsee, or with Gebirgs- 
parthien, and motives from the Isar. A critic of a 
cynical turn, but of excellent judgment, has remarked 
that a stranger seeing the pictures of the Munich school 
would conclude that most of them were painted before 
the sixth day of creation. Certainly, he says, more 
oxen and sheep are to be seen on these canvases than 
men, the men have all been swallowed up in the blue 
lakes, or engulfed in the mountain ravines. With 
such predominance of landscape, figure painters have 
not a fair chance. A beginner is always tempted to 
go with the majority, and a young man who might 
make a good genre, or historical painter, may be de- 
coyed into a style for which he is not fitted by the 
abundance of example and encouragement. 

Fortunately for the foreign reputation of the Munich 
school, landscape is not so exclusively represented in 
the New Pinacothek as it is in the Kunst Verein. I 
have mentioned several figure paintings with praise in 
my account of that gallery, and though Munich is very 
far behind France and England in genre, it produces 
works of considerable merit. Genre is so decidedly 
native in France, and so secure in its monopoly of 
patronage in England, that German painters cannot 



174 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



pretend to compete; and it must be remembered, to 
the credit of Germany, that the higher branches of art 
are not entirely neglected for the convenience of the 
careless and the untaught. When the chief painters 
are engaged on historical works it is natural that genre 
should languish, and though one may regret that 
talent is employed on the work of genius, it seems 
better that the State should support what can never be 
popular, and lay a good foundation for future excellence 
in soundness of tuition. 

The influence of Cornelius does not seem to weigh on 
the younger school of historical painters. The freer 
and larger ideas of the great French and Belgian 
masters have swept out the cobwebs of German national- 
ism from the minds of the rising youth, and Munich 
begins to see that Rossini's saying about music applies 
to painting. Eossini is supposed to have said to some 
learned gentleman who was entertaining him with a 
discourse on nationalities in music; "My dear sir, 
there is no such distinction as you suppose between 
Italian, German, Trench music; there are only two 
kinds of music, good and bad." There are only two 
kinds of painting, good and bad. Of course one allows 
for degres, as the president of a French tribunal stated 
to Dumas, but the principle is the same. Some, indeed, 
would stretch it to admit a third class, like the violin- 
teacher of George the Third. " There are three classes 
of violin-players, your majesty; those who can't play at 
all, those who play badly, and those who play well. 
Your majesty has now risen to the second class." But 
two kinds or three kinds, the meaning is, that art must 



SCULPTURE. 



175 



be gauged by its actual merits. Just as you cannot 
condemn a painter because he is German, so you cannot 
praise a painter because he is German. It is no cen- 
sure on the young painters who have learned ease and 
grace from France, to say that they do not paint like 
Germans. They do not paint like their predecessors, 
it is true; but neither did Raphael or Correggio. If 
the French style is better than the German, take it ; 
if Delaroche is more religious than Cornelius, and Horace 
Vernet's battle-pieces better than Adam's, follow Dela- 
roche and Vernet. Nations have reacted on each other 
since time began, and every step of national progress 
may be traced to some foreign inspiration. Why, then, 
is Art, the great common language of all peoples, to 
be confounded into separate tongues by an arbitrary 
Babel? 

It is unfortunate that sculpture, which is tied down 
by no such rules, should have succeeded so badly in 
Munich. A reason for its failure may doubtless be 
found in the general inaptitude of the present age # 
But Munich sculpture occupies a lower position than 
that of any other country, in spite of the encourage- 
ment of King Ludwig, and the presence of so fine a 
collection of ancient statues. In proportion to its size, 
Munich has an unusual number of street statues, and as 
this is a subject which inspires much bitter comment 
in Londoners, I will dwell on it at more length. 
Street statues have almost monopolised the production 
of Munich. There is only one room of modern sculp- 
ture in the Glyptothek, and that is chiefly occupied 
with busts. But a great many public works have been 



176 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



executed : groups in the temples and churches as well 
as statues in the squares ; and King Max is following in 
his father's steps in decorating his new street and his 
public buildings with statues and bas-reliefs. All 
around the Glyptothek are statues in niches ; every 
temple has its obligato groups on the pediments ; and 
the two classic gates, the Ludwig' s Kirche, the Boni- 
facius Kirche, and four of the public places at least are 
loaded, or embellished. In the Promenade Platz, in 
front of the Baierischer Hof — one of the hotels most 
frequented by English — are five statues : an elector, 
two composers, and two legislators. In the Wittels- 
bacher Platz stands Thorwaldsen's statue of the Elector 
Maximilian; in the Odeon's Platz close by the new 
statue of King Ludwig, and in the Hall of the Marshals 
Tilly and Wrede. King Max has placed a statue of 
Schelling in front of the unfinished National Museum, 
and King Ludwig promises a statue of Schiller for an- 
other part of the town. There is thus no lack of sculp- 
ture ; but a favourable opinion cannot be formed of the 
majority of the statues. 

Thorwaldsen's mounted Maximilian the First is, in- 
deed, a noble work. The firmness, the dignity of the 
rider, the fire of the charger, are worthy of the 
greatest of modern sculptors ; but the execution is sur- 
passed by the aptness with which the artist has caught 
the character of the monarch. We seem to see in every 
line of Maximilian's face, in his lofty bearing, in the grand 
simplicity of his gesture, the man who survived throughout 
the Thirty Years' War, taking a principal part not only 
against such antagonists, but under the pressure of such 



STREET STATUES; MAX EMMANUEL. 177 

an ally; the man of whom <Schiller says that his firm- 
ness only failed after resisting twenty-eight years of the 
severest trials. Thorwaldsen seems to have cast him in 
native bronze. This statue is a sufficient example to all 
future sculptors, and if we had one such in London to 
point the way, our failures might doubtless be avoided. 
There is character to some extent in the statues of 
Kreitmayr and Westenrieder in the Promenade Platz, 
still more in Gluck and Orlando di Lasso ; but all four 
are spoiled by the stupid figure of the Elector Max Em- 
manuel, which has been stuck in their middle. The 
two musicians were moved from the Odeon's Platz to 
make room for King Ludwig, that patron of art having 
declared that he would not have his statue placed be- 
tween two fiddlers. The position seems uncomfortable 
enough to justify the king's objection. Max Emmanuel 
is far from being at his ease in the centre of such ex- 
pressive faces, such noble attitudes. He stands on an 
exploded shell with an uplifted sword, his face like that 
of a sheep, his posture that of an awkward fencer, with- 
out one particle of motion or energy. This tameness is 
the more inappropriate that the statue is erected to him 
in his character of stormer of Belgrade. If it had pre- 
sented him in the character more familiar to English 
readers, as father of the prince chosen by the Partition 
Treaty to govern Spain, or as sharing with Tallard the 
honour of being defeated at Blenheim by the Duke of 
Marlborough, some amount of repose would be natural. 
Still better if the sculptor had intended to copy that 
French caricature of the Congress at the Hague which 
is described by Macaulay, and in which Ci William ap- 

i 2 



178 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



peared taking his ease in an arm-chair, with his feet on 
a cushion and his hat on his head, while the Electors of 
Brandenburgh and Bavaria, uncovered, occupied small 
stools on the right and left." Certainly, the Elector 
could not look more ridiculous in the French caricature 
than he does on this pedestal. The only explanation of 
this tameness is that the statement of a German autho- 
rity, "the garrison and inhabitants of Belgrade fell 
under the sword of the conqueror/' is literally true, and 
that the Elector is supposed to be quietly cutting them 
down. 

The statue of Schelling in the Maximilian's Strasse 
is by the same sculptor as the Max Emmanuel, and the 
merit of the two works is nearly equal. The figure of 
the philosopher is highly awkward ; his forehead is well 
developed, but the lower part of the face is coarse and 
unmeaning. And yet he shows better here than he 
does in his monument at Bagatz in Switzerland, where 
he is buried. His face there is priggish in the extreme, 
without the intellectual frontal development that half 
redeems him here. It is remarkable that the king who, 
in Munich, has placed the inscription, " Schelling, the 
Great Philosopher: erected by his thankful scholar, 
Maximilian IL," has called Schelling the greatest 
thinker of Germany at Bagatz. Are the Swiss sup- 
posed to be so ignorant of German philosophy as to 
leave this title unquestioned ? What would Heine have 
said to it ? It would hardly be safe to give Schelling 
such rank in the land of Leibnitz and Kant, even 
though it be considered that to instruct a king is the 
greatest effort of thought. 



STREET STATUES; KING LTJDWIG. 179 

It may seem strange that I do not mention Schwan- 
thaler, who, to some people, is the chief representa- 
tive of Munich, and whose works have a museum of 
their own. The sculptor of the splendid Goethe at 
Frankfort ought not to be passed over in silence, but 
the works of Schwanthaler in Munich are very inferior. 
His friezes and pediments are generally poor, as might 
be expected from the fatality that attends revivals. 
Thorwaldsen's John the Baptist preaching in the Wil- 
derness is the only work of the kind that I can appre- 
ciate ; and the height at which these works are placed 
necessarily removes them from our judgment. I greatly 
regret that no such street statue as the Goethe was en- 
trusted to Schwanthaler' s hand for the city of Munich ; 
the grandeur of the figure as well as the ability shown 
in the bas-reliefs on the pedestal would justify the em- 
ployment of such a sculptor. 

The statue of King Ludwig, erected by the town of 
Munich in August, 1862, is said to have been taken 
from an idea of Schwanthaler' s, but there is nothing of 
Schwanthaler in the statue. When the town resolved 
to record its gratitude to King Ludwig, the architect, 
Von Klenze, discovered a striking resemblance to the 
king in a sketch made by Schwanthaler for Matthias 
Corvinus, King of Hungary, and the king, flattered by 
the comparison, requested that his statue might be mo- 
delled from the sketch. Historians must determine how 
far the character of King Ludwig accords with that of 
Matthias Corvinus : the incidents of their reigns do not 
possess the slightest resemblance. Perhaps too much 
freedom and familiarity would be required to pourtray 



180 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



King Ludwig during his lifetime with that truth to 
nature that is the only use of a statue. Some attempt 
might doubtless have been made to ensure a likeness 
without absolute disloyalty. Of course one does not 
expect so literal a portrait as the one I have attempted 
to give in my chapter on Concerts, although that would 
be better than the excess of idealism and the utter 
absence of truth with which we have been presented. 
The sculptor never seemed to imagine it his duty to 
hint at the character of the King ; one might look for 
ever without knowing that the statue represented a 
patron of art and the embellisher of Munich. King 
Ludwig is on horseback, holding up a sceptre with his 
right hand, a crown on his head, and a mantle falling 
from his shoulders. On each side of the horse walks a 
page ; one bears a tablet inscribed " Gerecht/ ; the other 
a tablet inscribed Beharrlich," which two words form 
the King's motto, and are identical with our old friends, 
Justum et tenacem of Horace. The attitude would be- 
come an emperor entering Rome or Frankfort after his 
election, granting new privileges to his expectant sub- 
jects, and assuring them of fidelity to his promise. But 
King Ludwig, who inherited a constitution and had to 
observe it by resigning his crown, whose kingly actions 
are those which least bear examination, and who has 
never been seen on horseback within the memory of 
this generation, is the last man in the world who should 
thus be depicted. The uplifted sceptre, the costume, 
the attendant pages, imply some special grant to the 
people. If nothing is meant by these attributes, why 
are they given ? It cannot be said that King Ludwig 



SATIRE IN DISGUISE. 



181 



is so destitute of character that this unmeaning vague- 
ness is necessary.* 

In one point alone does the monument hint at the 
characteristics of King Lud wig's embellishments — in 
its wonderful mixture of costume. An artist- critic in- 
forms us that no less than eight different periods have 
been chosen to clothe the royal figure. His crown is 
of the eleventh century, his sceptre of the thirteenth, 
the pages that attend him of the sixteenth ; his mantle 
dates from the Thirty Years' War, and his tunic from 
the time of Charlemagne ; his short breeches and stock- 
ings belong to the eighteenth century, the trappings of 
his horse are modern Napoleonic, and his sandal-shoes 
Roman Imperial. If the artist intended to convey the 
mixture of styles in King Ludwig's buildings by this 
singular medley, he must be pronounced a satirist of 
decided originality. 

I am not sure if the porcelain, and painted glass, and 
similar productions of Munich, should be classed under 
the head of art or industry. As they might enter into 
either classification, they run the risk of being omitted 
from both ; and yet they are sufficiently creditable in 
both respects to need a detailed examination. Fortu- 

* The life of Rietschel has appeared since this was in type, and I am 
much gratified to find my judgment confirmed by one of the first of 
modern German sculptors, the pupil of Eauch, the author of the Luther 
monument and the group of Groethe and Schiller at Weimar. Eietschel's 
words, after seeing the sketch, are, " It is a mistake to erect a mounted 
statue of King Ludwig, for the simplicity of his life outwardly, by 
which he saved thalers in order to spend millions on works of art, is 
not characterised by a pathetic and poetic presentation on horseback 
with pages at the sides. This may make an interesting work of art, but 
it will lose all meaning both for the present and posterity." 



182 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



nately both glass and porcelain were amply represented 
in the industrial department of the Exhibition. The 
porcelain paintings strike you by the fidelity with which 
familiar pictures are reproduced in a more durable 
form. The intense labour of the artist who has to 
paint his copy three times over, once after each burn- 
ing ; the care as well as labour necessary to superintend 
the burning, when one deviation from the established 
temperature would be fatal, can hardly be rated too 
highly. The larger the picture is, the more danger of 
the plate being cracked, and the porcelain pictures pro- 
duced in Munich are larger than those of any other 
manufactory. I have touched upon the practical as- 
pects of the Munich glass in my industrial chapter. I 
believe my readers are too familiar with the exquisite 
colours and carving of Bavarian glass to need a descrip- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XT, 



PRACTICAL MUNICH. 



An eminent statesman, who discharged for a time the 
duties of minister at Munich, and received a consider- 
able salary for the services he rendered to his country 
in that responsible post, was in the habit of asking new 
arrivals if they meant to stay, adding that he wouldn't 
if he wasn't paid to do it. It is just because they are 
not paid to do it that most of the English residents take 
up their abode in Munich. The artistic attractions of 
the place, its mountain neighbourhood, are often dwelt 
on, but its cheapness is certainly the great inducement. 
Prices are much lower than in the other towns of Ger- 
many ; which is as much as to say that they are a great 
deal lower than in France or England. Meat costs 
fourpence or fivepence a pound, beer twopence half- 
penny a quart, servants from eight shillings a month 
upwards, while rates and taxes are almost unknown. 
No wonder that life seems easier to many families when 
the weekly bills are thus restricted, and as education is 
cheap, society not exclusive, climate about as good as 
anywhere else, it would be unreasonable to expect pay- 
ment in addition. 



184 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



But there is a meanness attached to this cheapness 
which does not appear on the surface. You pay little 
because you get little. You live cheaply because you 
have to go without many things which would seem in- 
dispensable in England ; and though many of these are 
not necessaries, and one justly complains at being forced 
to make use of them, one gets at least the worth of 
one's money out of them. In Munich you are not 
compelled to do certain things by the pressure of public 
opinion, and the usages of society. You are free to 
regulate your life according to your means, and need 
not be in constant fear of Mrs. Grundy. Surrounded 
by people of limited means, you are not tempted into 
constant extravagance by their example. You are not 
lectured by your servants about the rules of living 
adopted by the first houses, in which they have always 
been accustomed to serve. These are no doubt great 
recommendations. The social tyranny that reigns in 
some parts of our beloved country is such, that many 
Englishmen take shelter in foreign residence. It is far 
pleasanter, as well as cheaper, to cut your coat accord- 
ing to your cloth, than to have your neighbours sitting 
in judgment on the shape of one, and the quality of 
the other. But social liberty is not every thing. Even 
though one protests against doing every thing as the 
neighbours would have it, one may prefer the custom 
that is forced upon one, to those from which one is free 
to choose. And though it is unpleasant to find that 
life is a luxury one cannot afford in England, it is 
scarcely better to be reduced to the bare necessaries 
that prove sufficient for other nations. 



PRICES RELATIVELY. 



185 



In Munich, the prices of all things seem absolutely 
moderate when they are relatively dear. When you 
are told that you can live for so many hundreds a-year, 
you forget to ask on what scale, and with how much 
enjoyment. You do not consider that there are two 
kinds of value to every thing, its price and its worth. 
The fact is forced upon you by daily experience in many 
of the cheap towns on the Continent. I have met with 
people who thought England was cheaper than Munich, 
and who could certainly live more cheaply in England 
than in Munich. For unless you conform to the man- 
ners of a people, you gain little advantage by living 
among them. You have to pay dearly if you import 
English customs, as you pay a high duty on English 
goods. By grafting an English shoot on a German 
tree, you only get a hybrid kind of fruit, which nei- 
ther repays the cost, nor the trouble of rearing. I 
might give many instances of the mistakes into which 
English people fall in their attempt to have their native 
comfort at Munich prices. But I will confine myself 
to more general matters. One of the chief expenses of 
life is house-rent, and house-rent in Munich is not only 
relatively but absolutely dearer than in England. Re- 
member that in London you get a house to yourself, 
and in Munich only a floor, and you will see the enor- 
mous disparity of paying as much for the one as the 
other. It is scarcely possible to get a floor of six or 
eight rooms under sixty pounds a year, a price for which 
many houses of the same size are to be had in London. 
It is true that the floor may be situated in the better 
quarters of Munich, and the house in one of the suburbs 



186 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of London. It is true that certain additions in the 
shape of rates and taxes appear in the London budget, 
and do not in the Munich. But even the rates and 
taxes represent something definite. If you pay a water 
rate, you have water to the top of your house; if 
gas is an expensive item, at least you enjoy the light it 
gives you. Has any house in Munich gas laid on, or 
any house, except some of the newest, water ? Even 
the streets are not lighted on nights when the moon is 
promised in the almanack ; so that the gas company may 
be represented in the character of Bottom, crying, " A 
calendar, a calendar ! look in the almanack ; find out 
moonshine, find out moonshine." I have devoted a 
chapter to the dwelling-houses of Munich, and need 
not add that there are no such things as closets in 
them, or anything more than is absolutely necessary. 
In the majority of them you get the bare walls; in 
many the walls are bare even of paper. As for shut- 
ters, bells in the rooms, and all minor comforts, the less 
said the better. 

In other points, however, Munich prices observe a 
better proportion. Meat is evidently cheap, and as an 
article of daily recurrence is important in its effects on 
general expenditure. It were to be wished that the 
butchers would study anatomy, and that the gardeners 
would grow mint; the want of the first makes the joints 
uncertain masses, and the second banishes lamb from 
your table. Meat is killed much too young in Munich, 
especially lamb. The partiality of Germans for veal is 
well known, and in Munich the consumption of calves 
is out of all proportion to that of sheep and oxen. A 



PRICES POSITIVELY. 



187 



report of the victual market shows that in one year 
more than a hundred and ten thousand calves were 
slaughtered, while oxen, cows, and young bulls together 
amounted only to twenty-five thousand, sheep to twelve 
thousand, and pigs to twenty-six thousand. The num- 
bers given in this report throw a singular light on the 
national palate. Perhaps it is not strange that mutton 
is in small repute, seeing the quality of it is so much 
inferior to the English. But one would expect to see 
beef in the first rank of consumption^ remembering that 
the daily food of so many families consists of the Rind- 
fleish which has been boiled to make soup, and that the 
roast is a Sunday luxury. In the same year, says the 
report, twenty-five thousand fowls were sold in the vic- 
tual market, bringing in between twelve and thirteen 
thousand florins, that is about lOd. each; seventy-two 
thousand chickens, at about 8d. each; two thousand 
seven hundred and sixty-three turkeys, at about 3s. 6d. 
each; five thousand seven hundred and three capons, 
Is. 96?. each; seventy-nine thousand two hundred and eight 
geese, at 2s. each, and the same number of young geese 
at 8d. each; forty thousand ducks at 10d., and twenty- 
seven thousand ducklings at 3d. ; twenty-three thou- 
sand pigeons at 36?., and fourteen thousand sucking pigs 
at 5s. But the prices quoted in the report are very 
much lower than the prices you have to pay. 

I have written this paragraph with the same feelings 
as those that stir the breast of the sub-editor of a Lon- 
don paper, taking stock of the number of turkeys and 
geese which are being fattened in Norfolk for the com- 
ing Christmas. I can only ask my readers to accept it 



188 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



in the same spirit. Grave writers may scoff at the in- 
troduction of such materialism, but I believe mankind 
is always glad to read about eating. I am. 

Little, however, remains to be said upon the practical 
aspect of eating in Munich. The cosmopolite will find 
no restaurant worthy of the name, but one or two table 
d'hotes. In the winter there is a good supply of game, 
as the produce of all the royal chases goes into the 
market. Confectionary is much cultivated, and with 
good results. Beyond this more blame than praise. 
Milk and butter are in a state of barbarism. The blind 
economy of some dairies causes their butter to come 
rancid out of the churn, and even in the better kinds 
the milk has not been pressed out for fear of diminish- 
ing the weight. By this excess of prudence half a 
pound does the work of three-quarters, and the pro- 
ducer pockets the difference of weight. But as the 
butter does not taste good, and will not keep, the con- 
sumer indemnifies himself by using as little as he can, 
so that the over- cleverness of the producer only suc- 
ceeds in limiting his sale. It is hard at first sight to 
tell the difference between cream and milk, and on what 
principle those names are employed in Munich. But a . 
long experience has shown me that cream is milk with 
water put in it, while milk is water with milk put in it. 

I pass on to a question which has given rise to many 
caricatures and much discussion in England, as it is 
worthy of both in all quarters of the globe. The ques- 
tion of servants. After Swift's " Directions, 99 this 
point cannot be dismissed contemptuously as beneath 
the dignity of history. There has been a slight pro- 



SWIFT IN GERMAN. 



189 



gress in manners since the time of Swift, but many of 
his rules are still carefully observed. One would think 
that a Servants' Edition of his works had been pub- 
lished in Munich, or that the native sagacity of the 
Bavarians enabled them to follow his advice without 
having read it. We see in the conduct of the servants 
how deeply the zeal for inappropriate ornament has 
taken root in the people, and how entirely the thought 
of use is exploded. A Munich servant scarcely ever 
places anything where it is handy, but where it seems 
to look well. In setting the dinner-table a symmetrical 
arrangement is selected, which is really worthy of King 
Lud wig's buildings. You may see a dish put before 
the master of the house, and the plates before the 
mistress. The soup is invariably put in the middle of 
the table so as to give the lady of the house the trouble 
of pulling it to her. I presume there is some meaning 
attached to this custom ; it is probably handed down 
from old times, and commemorates the fathers of the 
nation. But it is so useless and inconvenient that I 
cannot understand its continuance. That the Munich 
servants should do it, I allow well; I have seen them 
place the soup-tureen in the centre of a clean table- 
cloth when mats were spread in every other part to 
preserve its whiteness. The wonderful ideas of the 
salon that prevail with German servants are only 
paralleled in that story of Alexandre Dumas showing 
some guests into his writing-room, "Messieurs, voici 
le sanctuaire ! Otez vos chapeaux !" I have known 
people brought into utter darkness, and left there 
while the servant went to tell the people of the house, 



190 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



who were sitting in another room, that there was a 
" Besuch im Salon" These things are quoted as 
national peculiarities. In no countries are servants 
perfect ; but it is strange to find them acting as social 
reformers, and expending their strength on artistic 
combinations which have to be disarranged and put in 
working order by the master and mistress. 

The same fault strikes you at every turn, in every 
branch of trade. Simplicity seems perfectly unknown 
in practical matters, and the flimsiest ornament is more 
valued than utility. Munichers never understand that 
if a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well; 
that a practical manufacture should be practical before 
anything in the way of ornament is added, and that the 
most beautiful object is of no use when something 
merely practical is required. That hunter in the Fables, 
who carved his bow till it broke, must have been a 
native of Munich. Nothing is more common than to 
find ornamental articles of great merit side by side with 
the coarsest and most careless objects of use. The 
carved and coloured glass produced in Munich is well 
known to all travellers ; a large stand of it was shown 
in the International Exhibition, and the shop under 
the Arcades, in which it is for sale, attracts every one 
to its windows. Yet the common table-glass supplied 
in Munich is as awkward and common as can be con- 
ceived. Or take the case of china. Munich boasts 
that its porcelain pictures are larger than those manu- 
factured at Dresden, or in any of the French establish- 
ments. Dresden, Vienna, and Berlin sent large shows 
of porcelain to the International, and there is a royal 



CHINA. 



191 



manufactory at Nymphenburg, about three miles from 
Munich. But if you want a handsome dinner-set or a 
tea-service you must get either French or English china. 
The Nymphenburg articles are strong and solid, but 
their shapes are so inconvenient, as well as inartistic, 
that they neither serve for ornament nor use, The 
plates are made with enormous rims, sloping at such 
an angle that neither salt nor mustard will stay on 
them. The dishes are so deep, and so much space is 
taken up by the size of their rims that carving meets 
with the most serious difficulties. The recommenda- 
tion of Montanus in the fourth satire of Juvenal, 

u Testa alta paretur 
" Quae tenui rnuro spatiosuin colligat orberm," 

is greatly wanted in Munich, where an exactly opposite 
plan of construction has been followed. One would 
think, however, that with Berlin and Dresden about 
fifteen hours distant by rail, and Vienna only twelve, 
it would not be necessary to employ Sevres or Minton 
if you wanted a set of china in Munich. 

One can hardly fail to remark the jealousy with 
which the German states keep up their home produce, 
and supply themselves only from the other states with 
which they are politically allied. The number of Vien- 
nese articles that are sold in Munich form an additional 
reason for the Bavarian advocacy of the admission of 
Austria into the Zollverein. Wurtemberg is closer at 
hand, and is separated by no custom-houses, but many 
more Viennese than Wurtemburg articles are to be 
found in Munich. It strikes one still more when one 



192 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



compares the exports from Germany with its home con- 
sumption. In the Zollverein department of the Inter- 
national one admired the beautiful things that came 
from Germany with a secret wonder that they could not 
be found in the shops of their native land. The Ger- 
mans lecture themselves every day on the necessity of 
supplying their own wants, and of making themselves 
independent of France, yet they export their best arti- 
cles, and people living in Germany are driven to use 
French goods from the vileness of those the Germans 
would substitute. You can buy better German toys in 
England than you can in Germany, and you pay less 
for the good ones in England than for the bad ones in 
Germany. The Wurtemberg toys in the International 
were perfect, yet if you want a first-rate toy in Munich, 
you must get one that comes from Paris. Nor is this 
impotence of the Germans confined to such luxuries as 
toys ; it is seen in all the productions of Munich. 
Everything that is really elegant comes from Vienna, if 
it comes from any part of Germany. And the removal 
of duties between Bavaria and Austria would be a mea- 
sure of the utmost benefit to Munich, while the imposi- 
tion of duties between Bavaria and the states of north 
Germany would not inflict a corresponding damage. 

The advocates of the admission of Austria into the 
Zollverein have generally confined themselves to princi- 
ples, but the details are the real secret of their advocacy. 
Take the question of wines. The Austrian and Hun- 
garian wines would no doubt supplant the Rhine wines 
in Munich, not being much inferior in flavour, and pro- 
bably better suited to the climate. Or take furniture. 



FURNITURE. 



193 



I read with surprise that the Bavarian Commissioner at 
the International was made President of the J ury for 
furniture on the ground that Germany stood pre-emi- 
nent among all nations in that branch of industry, and 
Bavaria had sent several masterpieces of the kind to the 
Exhibition. I know that furniture in Munich is both 
bad and dear; awkward shapes are almost invariably 
selected for easy chairs and sofas, and if you see a 
graceful fauteuil, ten to one it has come from Vienna. 
If the awkwardness was purchased by increased solidity 
one could hardly repine, but this is not the case. Much 
of the Munich furniture is made of unseasoned wood, 
which cracks at every change of temperature. Glue 
does not seem possessed of due powers of sticking, and 
constant mending is needed with almost every species 
of article. I never met with a piece of furniture that 
stood straight, although the unevenness of the floors 
may be a slight justification for the upholsterers. 
Vienna, on the other hand, exports the most beautiful 
furniture ; easy chairs that are models of luxury and 
grace, without the over-refinement and consequent 
want of durability of Parisian work. In a humbler 
way the light cane chairs of Austria are much to be 
recommended, being produced at a cheap rate, and 
combining elegance with solidity. The chairs of the 
same class made in Munich are either dear or brittle, 
besides being clumsy and ungraceful. I might touch 
upon other classes, but I believe these are samples 
enough. There are many faults to be found in Munich 
manufacturers which might be bettered by free im- 
portation from Austria. The example of Vienna work, 

K 



194 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



as well as the stimulus that the home trade of Munich 
would probably receive from competition, would no 
doubt have effects on masters and workmen, and I can- 
not but hope that these effects would be good. There 
is certainly a great need of them. In spite of the im- 
pulse just given by a partial relaxation of the guild 
laws, the trade of Munich is still in a state of bar- 
barism. It would almost be tedious to specify the in- 
conveniences that arise from careless workmanship, 
stupidity carried to its farthest extent, and all the con- 
sequences of these two motive powers acting on the 
most promising material. Suffice it that the difficulty 
of getting shoes in Munich is so great that many per- 
sons have theirs made either in Tegernsee or Ratisbon, 
the first place being forty miles, the second almost 
eighty miles distant. 

The matter of shoes is closely connected with that of 
pavements, and paving-stones were sent from within 
four miles of Munich to the Exhibition. I suggested at 
the time that the specimens ought to be arrested in 
transit, and applied to the wants of the town. Munich 
is, I believe, the worst paved, and the least paved, city 
on the continent. The old parts of the town are 
paved with little pointed stones which are the destruc- 
tion of leather, and on which penitents might walk 
without needing peas in their shoes to carry out their 
sentence. But the more fashionable part of the town, 
including the trottoir in front of King Ludwig's palace, 
is a swamp. Mud is the normal state of these side 
walks the greater part of the year, and the ground par- 
takes to such a degree of the nature of a quicksand that a 



WATER-WORKS. 



195 



cartload of gravel is swallowed up in the course of a 
winter. It seems that the municipal law of Munich 
leaves the proprietors free to pave, or not to pave, in 
front of their houses, and the majority of proprietors 
accept the less onerous liberty in its fullest signifi- 
cation. 

Great importance is attached to the ' ' water-laws" of 
Bavaria, and a volume in explanation of them has been 
published by an eminent jurist. The Isar is particu- 
larly arranged for the transmission of rafts ; slides are 
contrived in certain places, and the water is dammed 
in so as to be under control. And yet in the very midst 
of this subtle organisation you may see workmen driving 
piles into the bed of the river by hand, with a fall of 
water actually washing the piles as they are driven 
down. It never seems to have occurred to them that 
the water could have done their work with a tenth part 
of the trouble, and the great body of the stream is let 
off without any employment, though its swiftness and 
strength are enough to flood the town. The fire 
brigade is in like manner neglected, and the arrange- 
ments for putting out fires are highly inefficient. I 
was present one night at a fire, and it took three 
quarters of an hour to get an uninterrupted stream of 
water. At first casks and barrels were brought up and 
pumped dry without the slightest effect. Just as the 
hose poured forth a good shoot of water, and the fire 
began to settle down with an uneasy motion, the cask 
was dry ; the firemen shouted " Wasser auf " in vain, 
and the flames, relieved from their enemy, sprang up 
more vigorously than before, putting out their tongues, 



196 



. SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



as it were, in contempt at the paltry opposition. That 
no blame attached to the fire brigade, or to any of the 
people employed, was shown by the result of an inquiry 
which was instituted to satisfy the numerous com- 
plainants. The magistrates of Munich declared that 
the accusations of delay and disorder brought against 
the fire brigade were unfounded, a decision equivalent 
to an admission that there was no irregularity, nothing 
unusual in the proceedings. It takes, therefore, three 
quarters of an hour for the fire brigade of Munich to 
extinguish a fire in a shed, and the Government is 
contented with the result, as it refused to sanction the 
formation of a volunteer brigade, the method which, of 
all others, has proved the most effective. 

The custom house in Munich occupies the site of an 
old church, and if you look up from the examination of 
your goods you see the arches and the vaulted roof of 
the nave over your head. Ecclesiastical authorities 
might consider the present use of the building a dese- 
cration, but the custom house officials have provided 
against the charge by exceeding deference to the genius 
loci. The mediaeval spirit in which they transact their 
business is fully worthy of that ancient monastery in 
which the friars said murhpsimus instead of sumpsimus. 
My own experience of the place has fortunately been 
small. It is tedious to unpack a small box, see the 
contents of it weighed, one after another, stand at a 
table while paper after paper is filled with minute de- 
clarations, and then fiod that the duty only amounts 
to a penny farthing. Sheridan was indignant when 
his servant threw down a plate-warmer without break- 



LOCAL MATTERS. 



197 



ing anything; "You d — d fool, do you mean to say 
you have made all that noise for nothing?" — and in 
like manner one feels wroth at waiting half-an-hour in 
order to pay a penny farthing with formality enough 
for ten pounds. But this is nothing to a case that 
came to my ears. The inventor of a gun brought it to 
Munich, and submitted it to the Ministry of War. The 
custom house delivered up the gun to the Ministry on 
application, but demanded 130 florins duty from the 
inventor. He did not think it worth his while to pay 
the money, as the gun was in the hands of the Ministry 
of War, and paid no attention to the demand. As soon 
as trial had been made of the gun it was returned to 
the custom house, but the officials sent to the owner to 
say that he must come and pay them the money de- 
manded at first, and take a receipt for it ; must then 
receive the money again and give a receipt for it. 

With these facts before me I think myself justified 
in passing an unfavourable judgment on the practical 
side of Munich. It is not as an Englishman that I 
take this view, for I have endeavoured in all these 
chapters to emancipate myself as far as possible from 
national prejudices. But I note these characteristics 
as the great obstacles to improvement, as blots on the 
artistic glory which Munich arrogates to itself, and as 
faults that the boasted merits of the town are far from 
compensating. If it be urged that these things are 
matters of local and limited interest, I can only reply 
that we take interest in the local questions of barbarous 
countries ; and it can hardly be said that the islands of 
the Pacific are more attractive and more liable to be 
visited than Munich. 



CHAPTER XII. 



BAVARIAN RAILWAYS. 



If you examine a railway map of Europe, you can 
hardly fail to observe that there is an elementary stage 
which has to be gone through by almost all countries 
before their communications can be completed. In the 
infancy of travel one railway is expected to suffice for 
enormous tracts of country, and as towns have a way of 
lying in nooks and corners, instead of making a direct 
chain between two given points, the railway has to 
wander off in search of them. By degrees, as traffic 
increases, the enormous curves and windings are found 
inconvenient, and gradually a straight line grows up, 
fed like a large river by constant tributaries, and taking 
in at points of junction the contributions of the out- 
lying towns. The clever arrangement of so many years 
back is found a great impediment ; the expense of time 
and fuel required to wander round the country is 
double what the straight line demands, and with many 
grumbles at the wisdom of their ancestors, the people 
begin to rebuild on a better foundation. Now spring 
up all those tangles of loop lines which make poets 
compare the map of England to a spider's web, and 



THE ELEMENTARY STAGE. 



199 



which can only be matched by Belgium on the Con- 
tinent. Now the only objection to travel is the dif- 
ficulty of choosing among so many competitors, and 
the increasing study of Bradshaw renders a mathe- 
matical education desirable. If only English railway 
companies could agree, like birds in their little nests, 
nor always make blind attempts to feather them at the 
expense of their rivals ; and if the English railway car- 
riages were only as convenient as the German, travelling 
in England would have no impediment. 

The railways in Bavaria are still in the elementary 
stage. In the last few years some progress has been 
made with them, great progress for Germans; but so 
much remains to be done that very many years must 
elapse before they can at all approach completion. The 
Government does not care to speculate on the traffic 
that would no doubt be called into existence in Bavaria, 
as it has been in all other countries, by supplying it 
with means of locomotion, and the people are so slug- 
gish and indifferent that they wait the good pleasure of 
the Government. Private railway companies are not 
native on the Continent ; in Bavaria there is only one 
of them. Till the year 1856 every strip of railway in 
Bavaria w r as in the hands of the State, but in that year 
a company was allowed to build a railway from Munich 
to Batisbon, Linz, and Nuremberg, with a promise from 
the State that no one should make another railway con- 
necting the same termini for 99 years. The promise 
implies a very long elementary stage, and one need 
only trace on the map the line so protected to predict 
the results of this monopoly. Still the endeavours of a 



200 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



few years have been crowned with much success, and 
have not been without good effects. In 1859 the 
quickest way from Munich to Vienna was by Dresden, 
a railway journey of thirty-six hours ; it can now be done 
direct in thirteen. Any body acquainted with Bavarian 
Eilwagen will admit that the worst of all railroads is an 
improvement on them. In 1859 I wanted to go from 
Munich to Vienna, and tried to catch the steamer from 
Ratisbon. Seeing that the Eilwagen was advertised to 
arrive in Ratisbon at the hour the steamer left, I sup- 
posed that they corresponded, and calculating the 
distance, I found that going four miles an hour we 
should have time to do it. And yet we managed to 
miss the steamer. I do not think even the Bavarian 
Eilwagen could have done so if it had been left to 
itself; but in order to lose time they changed the 
horses from one carriage to another, which probably 
just occupied the twenty minutes by which we were 
too late. To this day I cannot fathom the motives 
which impelled them to take two horses out of one 
diligence and put them in another. The horses were 
just the same, the carriages were just the same, and 
they were going the same way. I presume it was 
innate stupidity, very highly developed by constantly 
driving a Bavarian Eilwagen. Let us be glad we are 
rid of them at last. 

Besides the direct communication with Vienna, rail- 
ways have been opened between Munich and Ratisbon, 
from Ratisbon up to Nuremberg and down the Danube, 
and from Ratisbon across to Prague. The importance 
of these eastern railways is very great, especially the 



GREAT CIRCLE SAILING. 



201 



line last mentioned. It is bnt a year ago Prague was 
only accessible by Vienna, or by Dresden, and the 
Bohemian Baths could only be reached after a long and 
tedious journey. Of course when the choice lies be- 
tween going an immense way round by rail, and going 
straight by road, one would choose the former, for in 
Bavaria all travelling goes on the principle of great 
circle sailing, the longest way round the shortest way 
there. 

Other lines of equal importance have already been 
decreed, but the slowness of German work will pro- 
bably cause it to be some time before they are in opera- 
tion. The trunk line between Munich and Frankfort 
is to be shortened by two additions, one from Ansbach 
to Wurzburg, the other from Nuremberg to Wurzburg. 
The first of these lines makes a difference of 70 miles 
between Augsburg and Wurzburg, the second makes one 
of thirty-six miles between Nuremberg and Wurzburg. 
At present, though Frankfort is close on the borders of 
Bavaria, and the main Bavarian line runs from Munich 
to Frankfort, the traffic generally goes through Wur- 
temberg and Baden. For going through Wurtemberg 
and Baden you take ten or eleven hours getting from 
Munich to Frankfort ; going by the Bavarian line you 
take thirteen or fourteen. The Wurtemberg line is not 
as straight as it might be, but the Bavarian might, for 
any frontier question, be almost direct. The proposed 
abbreviation will make it the shorter of the two. At 
present it makes a digression to visit the interesting 
town of Nuremberg, and, being so far out of its course, 
there is no reason why it should not go a little further 

k 2 



202 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



and see Bamberg. Thus it describes an exact semi- 
circle before it gets to Wurzburg, a proceeding worthy 
of a Vacation Tourist, but savouring of contemptible 
weakness in a railroad. The frontiers of Wurtemberg 
and Austria come down so menacingly to the Lake of 
Constance, shutting Lindau into so small a space that 
some people explain the snake-like twistings of the rail- 
road between Augsburg and Lindau by political neces- 
sity. But compare the actual frontier marks with the 
windings of the rail, and you see that there was room 
enough between the two countries if the Bavarian engi- 
neers had not preferred a tortuous course. The line 
from Munich to Salzburg instead of crossing the Isar at 
Munich, where the banks are lower, makes an enormous 
curve in order to cross it three miles above. The 
bridge, which is taken across at this point, is highly 
vaunted as a marvel of engineering, and it is really said, 
with perfect gravity, that the engineer chose this most 
difficult place the more gloriously to overcome the diffi- 
culties. After this beginning the line goes down till it 
almost touches the mountains, makes a curve upon it- 
self, and winds out and in of a most picturesque ravine, 
now leaning on one side, now on the other, to the 
terror of nervous passengers. Bridge, curve, ravine, all 
might have been avoided. But with that respect for 
tradition and for their classical authors that all Germans 
possess, I presume they feel bound to make their rail- 
roads on the principle laid down by Schiller. Duty and 
inclination are not more opposed than straight lines 
and German, and this passage can be applied to rail- 
roads as aptly as to conflicting motives. 



SCHILLER AS " VATES." 



203 



" Grrad'aus geht des Blitzes, 
G-ekt des Kanonballs furchterlicher Pfad — 
Schnell, auf deni nachsten Wege, langt er an, 
Macht sich zermalnierid Platz, um zu zermalmen. 
Mein Sohn ! die Strasse, die der Menscli befahrt, 
Worauf der Segen wan del t, diese folgt 
Der Fliisse Lauf, der Thaler freien Kriimmen, 
Umgeht das Weizenfeld, den Rebenhugel, 
Des Eigenthums gemess'ne Granzen ehrend — 
So fiihrt sie spater, sicher doch zum Ziel." 

Piccolomini, Act i., Scene 4. 

" Straightforward goes 
The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path 
Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies and rapid, 
Shatt'ring that it may reach, and shatt'ring what it reaches. 
My son ! the road the human being travels, 
That, on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow 
The river's course, the valley's playful windings, 
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines, 
Honouring the holy bounds of property ! 
And thus secure, tho' late, leads to its end." 

Coleeidg-e's Translation. 

The aptness of the description can hardly be dis- 
puted ; it would seem as if Schiller had possessed the 
prophetic eye that once was the poet's attribute. Every 
detail is faithful and apposite from the windings of the 
railroad down to its late arrival. It is to be wished 
that the correctness of the phrase " secure " did not 
apply to German trains alone, or that an Englishman 
could touch on that point without admitting that his 
country has something to learn. 

But, in spite of our natural impatience, we must 
own that progress has been made, and though while 



204 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



things are doing they always seem to go slow, when one a 
looks back one can judge more favourably. The activity 
of the present reign as compared with the former is 
shown to some extent in the railway. When King 
Maximilian ascended the throne in 1848 there were 
scarcely more than 230 miles of railroad existing, and 
these, says the writer from whom I take the informa- 
tion, were scattered fragments without any connection. 
In 1861, on the other hand, there are almost 1,150 
miles open. It is interesting to compare these facts 
with the panegyrics passed on King Ludwig as creator 
of the Bavarian railways. You might as well call the 
Pope the creator of the Italian railways. No doubt 
Bavaria had her first lines opened under KingLudwig, just 
as the line from Civita Vecchia to Rome has been opened 
by Pope Pius the Ninth. But the creator of anything is 
not the possessor of authority which cannot resist its 
introduction, and unless it can be shown that King 
Ludwig took any active part in calling the Bavarian 
railways into existence, the name cannot with any jus- 
tice be applied to him. 

One cannot but regret that under a government 
which seems really desirous of introducing practical 
measures, some means are not taken to make the rail- 
ways more available. The system still pursued is radi- 
cally defective, and while all the faults of neighbouring 
countries are preserved, their merits are seldom adopted. 
For instance, in Wurtemberg the long American cars 
are in use, and their convenience is evident to all who 
have travelled in them, In Bavaria the carriages are 



DESPOTISM OF GUARDS. 205 

- generally narrow and stuffy, evils which are aggravated 
by the custom invariably adopted of cramming each 
separate carriage before opening another. On these 
lines the guards are officials, and their blue and white 
uniform is as much respected as if they were generals 
on parade. In England the guard is content to be the 
servant of the train ; in Germany he is in command of 
the passengers. "When is the train going on" asked 
an Englishman once of a foreign guard. " Whenever I 
choose/' was the answer. To judge from the delays 
the trains make at some stations, one would suppose 
that the guard had uncontrolled power of causing stop- 
pages. You see him chatting with the station-master 
for several minutes after all the carriages have been 
shut up, and at last, when the topics of conversation are 
exhausted, he gives a condescending whistle to the 
engine-driver. Time seems never to be considered by 
either guards or passengers. Bavarians always go to 
the station half an hour before the train is due, and 
their indifference to delay is so well known that the 
directors can put on their time-book, " As the time of 
departure from small stations cannot be guaranteed, the 
travellers must be there twenty-five minutes before- 
hand." 

As an Englishman who respects the liberty of the 
subject, and endeavours not to sin against time, I con- 
sider this rule one of the most flagrant offences to both 
that can be devised. But I cannot help owning its 
necessity. It alludes to goods trains carrying pas- 
sengers, and it is quite impossible to fix the time at 
which a goods train will arrive at any station. You 



206 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



may easily allow a few minutes for passengers getting 
in and out ; and even if there is an unusual number, 
the time will hardly be over-passed. But no calculation 
can be made of the delay to which a goods train may 
be subjected. A man may want to send up bars of iron 
from a small station, where there is no possibility of 
loading it before the train arrives, and only one porter 
to load it then. There is a great deal of goods traffic 
on the Bavarian lines, and therefore full time must be 
allowed. Of course I object as strongly to the prin- 
ciple of combining goods trains and passenger trains ; 
a principle which is mischievous as well as mistaken. 
But with a great amount of goods traffic, and with pas- 
sengers whom you can use at your own good pleasure, 
with single lines moreover, and great curves and climb- 
ings, which render fast travelling impossible, it can 
hardly be avoided. If it were not for the meekness of 
Germans, however, some steps would have to be taken 
to remedy it. On what English line would the pas- 
sengers allow themselves to be ordered about in such a 
way, to be put in goods trains, and desired to come five 
and twenty minutes before the time stated on the train 
bills? And what English line exists which does not 
put on more passenger trains than the most important 
lines in Bavaria? I have lived long enough on bye-lines 
to know how Englishmen are treated when they do not 
travel, and have seen trains almost empty performing 
their journeys with the same zeal as if they had been 
full. But in Bavaria, where people do travel, and an 
empty carriage is an exception, you have at the most 
two passenger trains a day, and four or five goods 



SINGLE LINES. 



207 



trains with passengers. How comes it that there is so 
much goods traffic that the passenger traffic is sacri- 
ficed to it? Or is it that the meekness of the pas- 
sengers entitles them to be classed with goods, being 
quite as unresisting, and even more easily managed, 
because they have not to be lifted ? 

One of the causes of this paucity of trains is the 
predominance of single lines, though there is no reason 
why five or six goods trains should do the work of pas- 
senger trains on this account alone. Single lines of 
course interfere with, in fact destroy the possibility of, 
quick travel and activity. But they exist almost through 
the whole of Bavaria; it was only the other day a 
double line was laid between Munich and Augsburg. 
With single lines you have not only to arrange the 
times of trains running in the same direction, but also 
of the trains meeting each other. All trains must 
meet at a station, as only there is a possibility of pass- 
ing. A complete regulation of the whole traffic is thus 
necessary, and no alteration can be made without alter- 
ing the whole, and if one train is at all behind its time, 
the whole line suffers for it. The train that has to meet 
at one station must be kept back, for fear of a collision ; 
this train is also thrown out of its time, and the delay 
is felt again further down the line. This acts and re- 
acts throughout the day; so that the old proverb is 
verified, that if you lose half an hour in the morning, 
you will never catch it up again, if you run after it till 
the evening ; and Bavarian trains do not run after the 
time they have lost. 

I need hardly say that the rate of travelling is ex- 



208 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



ceedinglyslow. Express trains sometimes attain twenty- 
seven miles an hour, excluding stoppages; but ordi- 
nary passenger trains do not seem to get beyond fifteen 
to eighteen, and goods trains, I should judge, about ten. 
I counted more than thirty waggons in a goods train 
by which I travelled, and on the long curves I saw the 
engine at least a quarter of a mile a-head, and had 
some difficulty in believing it had any connection with 
my carriage. Formerly, the express train from Paris 
used to arrive in Augsburg five minutes after the express 
for Munich had left, and the passengers had to go on 
by goods train. This, however, was remedied a few 
years ago, and the intimate acquaintance with the 
manners and customs of the people which is gained by 
travelling in their most national train, was no longer 
imposed on express passengers. One or two similar 
reforms have also been introduced within my recollec- 
tion. The fast trains now leave Munich at six, formerly 
they left at five. Formerly, too, the train at this hour 
was the only fast train ; so that you had only a choice 
between getting up at three, and Bavarian travelling. 
Now there is a train at night. 

But these reforms are brought in with all possible 
deliberation. How long was it before the bridge was 
built over the Bhine at Strasbourg, and that tedious 
omnibus journey supplanted by the rail? Of course 
the bridge could not be built without forts being planted 
at each end, to blow it up at an instant's notice; in 
fact, to many, the forts are more essential parts of the 
work than the bridge. And even when the bridge was 
built, effecting a saving of two hours time, it was a 



POLITICAL ECONOMY OF RAILROADS. 209 

year and a-half before any acceleration of the trains 
took place to correspond. So far from this, the time 
between Munich and Paris was longer the year after 
the bridge was built than the year before. We have to 
go to Austria to find a parallel for this, in the stop- 
page of the express train between Vienna and Trieste, 
because it wore out the rails, and did not pay. 

The political economy of railroads seems not to be 
understood by Germans. They do not see that by cul- 
tivating passengers you make them increase; that by 
throwing facilities in their way you entice them to 
travel. An express train between such places as the 
capital of Austria and its sea-port town, is not a matter 
of speculation; it is a duty to civilisation. Do the 
night mails in England pay ? I have been the only 
through passenger in one. If the letters make them 
pay, and not the passengers, the same would apply to 
the mail between Vienna and Trieste, especially as the 
postal system adopted in Germany is not the uniform 
rate, but the rate by distance. It is not in this point 
alone that Germans seem ignorant of railway economy. 
The chief thing to be saved by railway travel is time, 
and that we have seen to be squandered, and how much 
money is thrown away on the stations, instead of being 
employed on the trains. 

Mr. Kuskin inveighs eloquently against ornamenting 
railway stations ; he need only come to Bavaria to find the 
most grievous offences against his law. The railway sta- 
tion in Munich is as elegant as any of the other public 
buildings ; only the other day frescoes w r ere painted in 



210 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the large hall whence the trains take their exit, and 
into which they have their entrance. 

Moreover, royal travellers are strangely considered in 
the building of railway stations. In the Munich sta- 
tion there is a Konig's -salon, king's saloon, in which 
royal passengers take their meals, and at the door of 
which a Suisse is posted, as if it was a palace chamber. 
The furniture of the saloon, as I saw once when pass- 
ing, is luxurious and elegant, and the porter of the sta- 
tion — not porter in the English sense, but in the Suisse 
— was standing outside with cocked hat, long fur-bor- 
dered coat, and mace, to receive the guests of distinc- 
tion. Is it too much to ask whose money pays for all 
this finery ; whose money keeps a Suisse at a railway 
station in grand livery, and a saloon fitted up like one 
in king's houses ? Surely not the public money, nor 
that of the passengers. I cannot believe that either 
taxes or fares would be squandered so uselessly, that a 
royal person may pass through a furnished saloon to his 
carriage, or may take his meals in a public building, 
instead of going to a palace or an hotel. 

Royal personages need not wait for trains because 
trains wait for royal personages. And those who are 
actually royal, not half-royal, or ex-royal, have trains 
to themselves. But the public does need some accom- 
modation in Bavarian stations. Mr. Buskin's reason 
for objecting to every kind of ornament in railway sta- 
tions is, that we don't want to stay in them longer than 
we can help. But the Bavarians, who come an hour 
before the time, must be catered for differently. Some 



MUNICH AND PADDINGTON. 



211 



diversion must be found for people who pass their life 
preparing for their journeys, and to these Mr. Ruskin's 
premisses do not apply. But I agree with his conclu- 
sion on entirely different grounds. The money that is 
earned by traffic should not be invested in such fripperies. 
Double lines, and sufficient trains, ought to precede 
frescoes and architectural designs, and it will be time 
to think of the latter, if a surplus remains after the 
completion of all practical arrangements. The sight of 
a well-appointed train steaming at speed, with well- 
subordinated guards and free passengers, is infinitely 
more gratifying to the eye than frescoes symbolising a 
progress that is not yet attained. 

That same mistaken principle, which appears in 
almost every public work in Munich, is conspicuous 
in these frescoes. The ornaments superimposed on 
useful buildings are more considered than the use for 
which the buildings are designed. Perhaps this is 
more apparent in the railway station than elsewhere. 
Compare the Munich station with that of the Great 
Western in London, the fittings of which are so splendid, 
and which we boast with justice to be the finest work of 
the kind in England. The arrangements of the Munich 
station are defective from a practical point of view, 
while those at Paddington are in every way suited to 
the convenience of travellers. Prom the outside the 
Paddington station does not present the artistic appear- 
ance of the Munich station, and absence of striking 
effects and harmonious colours on the inside is suffi- 
ciently shown in Mr. Frith' s great picture. Mr. Frith 
would have done better to select the inside of the 



212 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Munich station to form a background to his very 
dramatic train ; no grey monotony there, but a banquet 
of colour, and profusion of elaborate workmanship. 
Above the white-curtained windows of the restaurant at 
the end of the hall are the new frescoes, painted by 
a pupil of Kaulbach named Echter, to whose hands are 
due the immense frescoes on the staircase of the Mu- 
seum in Berlin. Nor are these two unworthy of the 
student of such a master. They represent allegorically 
the two motive powers of modern traffic, steam and elec- 
tricity. The telegraph is symbolised by a female form 
rising from the earth, her hair flying wildly from her 
head in threads like the far-stretching lines of wire. 
On one side of her is another nymph whispering a 
message into the ear of a pendulous child, and the 
message darts through a chain of floating children to a 
nymph on the opposite side, who writes it down. In 
the picture of Steam we have a female figure who has 
yoked the spirit of steam to her car, and is borne along 
by his mighty efforts. He is a strong, muscular man, 
puffing out full breaths of steam, and labouring onwards 
with gigantic power and energetic display of anatomy. 
Before him the barriers of different countries crack and 
tumble right and left, crushing the old pigtailed figure 
of restriction in their fall. Passports, wanderbuchs, 
permis de depart are sent flying " a thousand leagues 
into the devious air," like the manifold objects sent by 
Milton's scorn to people the Paradise of Fools. Grace- 
ful and good design must be allowed to these frescoes, 
with the great merit of presenting allegory successfully. 
They are placed too high, and are quite out of place, 



TRANSCENDENTALISM. 



213 



but the painter's share in them is only worthy of 
praise. 

rs The beautiful thought/' says an ultra-philosophical 
critic in one of the German papers, " that a town like 
Munich ought to show its character as art-town to the 
stranger at the first moment, on the threshold of his 
entry, is so evident that one can but wonder that it has 
only now come to be accomplished. We greet this 
accomplishment the more gladly that we have had 
to wait so long for it. Under the present system of 
travel the railway station is, in some measure, the 
threshold of a town. The railway station is the place 
where the character of the town is first displayed/' and 
so on. If this be true, the character of Munich is cer- 
tainly well shown in its railway station. When the 
passenger who arrives has to get out in the rain and 
walk in it a hundred yards before reaching the covered 
hall, which is filled up with the goods-waggons, he may 
cast a hasty glimpse up to the frescoes, and ask why 
they are not turned into a covering against the rain. 
And the parting guest who has learned the character 
of Munich, will hardly need the further instruction 
afforded by a station in which the frescoes are placed in 
the hall, but the passengers for whose gratification they 
were painted are kept out of their sight in the waiting- 
room. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE ROYAL LIBRARY. 

Why is it called Royal ? The Royal Court and State 
Library. Is it so exclusively used, first by Royalty, 
then by the Court, and lastly by the State ? Far from it ; 
it is more public in its nature than the British Museum 
which pretends to no such exalted titles. And yet the 
British Museum has more right to such names than the 
library in Munich, for George the Fourth's private 
collection was to some extent the nucleus of, at all 
events a great addition to, the present library, and with- 
out some introduction no reader is admitted. In Mu- 
nich any one may read in the library without being 
introduced. I believe the books have been collected 
chiefly from old monasteries ; the sums required by the 
library are voted by the Chamber, and the costs of 
building do not appear in the list of King Ludwig's dis- 
bursements. By what right, therefore, is the library 
royal? But call it public, and see how Bavarian loyalty 
will be offended ; and yet, to my mind, public is a more 
honourable title than royal. A library freely open to 
all, as the Munich library is, seems to me public in the 
largest sense. And I readily admit the merits of the 



A PRELIMINARY REMARK. 



215 



Munich library ; it is generous and hospitable to stran- 
gers as to natives; it grudges nothing that is in its 
power, nor could it well be expected to give more than 
it gives. One is apt to forget that Munich is only the 
capital of Bavaria, and seeing it do so much, one thinks 
that it might easily do more ; and one's English notions 
of the practical are too susceptible. Let me not be 
deemed ungrateful to a library whence I have received 
so much assistance, and where I have been treated with 
so much consideration, if I seem to dwell more on its 
defects than on its merits, more on what it wants than 
on what it possesses. 

As I have mentioned the British Museum in connec- 
tion with the Munich Library, and as many readers are 
probably familiar with the former, I can best make the 
Munich system clear by contrasting the two. There 
can be no greater contrast. The English and the Ger- 
man are as fully shown in their libraries as in any other 
subject of comparison. The ideas of the two nations, 
their manner of life, appear in every detail. In the 
British Museum everything is done that can promote 
the comfort of the readers. There is a large class of 
attendants constantly running backwards and forwards 
with piles of books and MSS.; original documents to 
aid the researches of a historian, heraldic tomes for 
some gentleman deep in families, a three volume novel 
for a young student who prefers the lighter side of 
national life; there is an elaborate catalogue ready to 
hand, and sufficient to suggest subjects of study to 
those in want of literary employment ; not to mention 
the minor comforts of a pleasant room, lofty and well 



216 SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 

ventilated, those comfortable chairs, the desk for each 
reader with his book supporter and blotting pad, the 
countless books of reference within every one's reach, 
the map of the room, that guides you to every subject 
represented on its walls. There is nothing of this in 
the Munich library. The reading-room is low and 
dark, vaulted like a crypt, with heavy pillars ; the fit- 
tings consist in two long bare tables, at which every one 
reads, without a desk to support books, or any conve- 
nience for transcribing. Neither catalogue nor books of 
reference are in the room, nor are they to be had with- 
out special permission. But the chief inconvenience is 
that you may have only one book at a time, and you 
must bespeak that the day before. The result is that 
the reading-room is very scantily tenanted, and the 
power of taking books away leads all who can to read 
at home. There is no lack of civility or willingness on 
the part of the employes, but they are very few, are pro- 
bably overwoi^ked, and underpaid. 

The chief difference between the Munich system and 
the London system lies in the permission granted to all 
properly authenticated readers to take books home. 
This is of itself sufficient to alter the whole manner of 
study. But there are some minor differences which I 
will treat first in order. The number of feast -days and 
their rigid observance is very obnoxious to regular 
students. One never knows exactly when the library is 
going to be open. One day it is shut because it is the 
King's nameday, another because it is the Queen's ; 
one day because there is a procession down the Lud- 
wig's Strasse, another because there is a procession 



A ROYAL ROAD TO LEARNING. 217 

down the Maximilian's Strasse. Then there are three 
days during the October feast, and odd days about 
Christmas tide. I do not complain of the holidays 
granted to the attendants, but of their uncertainty and 
their irregularity. Again, in London, while great 
efforts were made to adorn the inside of the reading- 
room with fitting splendour, the outside and the ap- 
proach are by no means magnificent. In Munich the 
outside is gorgeous, and the inside is mean. The build- 
ing, designed by Gartner, is a noble work in the Byzan- 
tine style, by far the finest in the Lud wig's Strasse c 
On entering you ascend a superb staircase, the wonder 
of all visitors, and the subject of praise to all valets-de- 
place. The steps are of marble, broad and easy, the 
walls adorned with medallions, and the head flanked 
by two statues of princes of the Bavarian house. There 
can be but one opinion of the splendour of this stair- 
case, and but one opinion of its unfitness. In a palace 
built entirely for show and for luxury, it would be 
graceful and becoming. But when it leads you to the 
dingy reading-room without one fitting either for com- 
fort or for show, when you notice the poverty of the 
internal arrangements and the want of attendants, and 
are told that the library is too poor to afford anything 
better, you ask why was not the staircase turned into 
something useful. But this is the plan King Ludwig 
has followed in every one of his buildings. In every 
one purpose is sacrificed to outward show, and comfort 
is bought off by splendour. It is indeed reported — I 
know not with what truth — that the grand staircase 
was originally intended for the King alone, and that the 

L 



218 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



readers were to find their way through winding pas- 
sages, across an open court and up a narrow flight of 
steps. Of course none but ultra-loyals would put up 
with such treatment, and scarcely even ultra-loyals 
after 1848. Still it is merely the logical consequence 
of the rest of the system. 

I believe that a register is kept of all books applied 
for in the British Museum in order that those which 
are most in demand may be placed in the reading- 
room. In Munich a register is also kept, but in a dif- 
ferent way. The books that each person has had from 
the Library are entered under his name. 1 do not know 
with what object this register is kept, unless it is that a 
surveillance may be exercised over each one's studies. 
There is a story told to show the completeness of the 
Austrian system of police which seems to have sug- 
gested this scheme to the Munich officials. An Aus- 
trian mother, whose son had run away from home, 
came to the police to ask for information about hiin, 
and was told every single thing he had done since he 
left her roof. Not one of his least actions was omitted 
from their register, no journey, no word, no thought 
even was permitted to escape them. Or perhaps that 
book of Edgar Quinet's, " Histoire de mes Idees," in 
which he traces the rise and progress of his thoughts, 
may have helped to suggest it. The Bavarian Govern- 
ment is evidently desirous of following the thought of 
each of its citizens, that if any one enters on a danger- 
ous course of study he may be checked before he goes 
too far; that if any one writes a dangerous book the 
Government may know the sources whence he gained 



MUNICH AND OXFORD. 



219 



his inspiration. I do not know if this register is kept 
of all books read in the Library, or only of those taken 
away from it. 

I need not say that the permission granted to take 
books home from the Library is a great convenience, 
but it has some ills attending it. In London, of course, 
such a system would be impossible, for London is the 
literary capital of England, besides being the largest 
city in the world ; and though regular readers are few 
in comparison to the population, the occasional readers 
would exhaust the Library. But in Munich it can 
hardly be avoided, and it must be owned that the per- 
mission is granted on a most liberal scale. The few 
people who go to Oxford with a view to opening books 
are aware that the Bodleian is rendered almost useless 
by adhering to the system of the British Museum, and 
Munich bears a very close resemblance to Oxford. 
Even if a luxurious reading-room existed in Munich, 
it could hardly be used. Professors who have occupa- 
tions beyond reading, lectures to deliver, disputations 
and official meetings to attend, could hardly spend 
their days in the Library as is done by so many 
readers in the British Museum. I can hardly form an 
idea of the result of confining all students in Munich 
to one reading-room. It would become the dwelling of 
all the learned population of the town, it would have to 
accommodate a quarter of the inhabitants, and would 
soon become a bookish version of the Baths of Cara- 
calla. As all Paris is concentrated in the Bourse, so 
all Munich would dwell in the reading-room, and it 



220 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



would be necessary to provide a kitchen below, turn 
on beer, and allow smoking. 

Still, when books are allowed to be taken from tlie 
Library, certain regulations ought to be made and 
observed strictly. Otherwise it becomes a race for 
precedence, and the few are apt to be served at the 
expense of the many. It is plain what these regula- 
tions should be. There ought to be a certain time 
fixed, at the expiration of which books must be re- 
turned. No one should be permitted to keep books 
beyond this time, be he Professor, be he even King. 
Books of reference ought never to be taken away from 
the Library. An extension of the time might readily 
be allowed if no one else had applied for the book, but 
no high person should be favoured by getting a book 
called in before the time for which it was granted to 
another had expired. Even if these rules were strictly 
kept, there might be some inconvenience, for it fre- 
quently happens that two men are reading books on 
the same subject, and it may not suit one to wait till 
the other has had them the full time. A month is 
allowed — nominally — in Munich as the time that books 
may be kept, and a month is not too much for, most 
books, hardly enough for some. With the British 
Museum system you have only those books in use that 
you are actually using, and if a book that is kept for 
you is wanted by another, he can have it for a time, till 
you want it again. But in Munich, if a man is reading 
a dozen different subjects he may have all the books on 
them at home, and till he returns them finally they 



PLEASURES OF PRIVILEGE. 



221 



are out of your reach. It is of course convenient to 
him to write with his books around him, but it may be 
questioned how far it is fair to others. As it is, each 
Professor has a small private library of reference at the 
expense of the National Library. And what makes it 
worse is, that the rules which I have mentioned, and 
which I venture to believe indispensable for the general 
utility are never observed. The time allowed is only 
nominal, books of reference are lent out, and great 
favour is shown to privileged people. 

At the top of the receipt you sign for a book ; it is 
stated that it must be returned at the end of four weeks, 
and at the end of four weeks if you do not bring the 
book back, and if any one else has applied for it, the 
Librarian is supposed to send for it. But in fact, if 
you are a Professor you may keep a book almost any 
time, and any number of persons may ask for it with- 
out your being troubled by an application. I have 
heard men say that they have kept books a year, and 
I once heard the Librarian observe, on returning a 
receipt to a man, that it had been there three years. 
Month after month I have written down the name of a 
book without ever being able to get it, and as it was a 
book on a special subject in a foreign language it was 
evidently kept by the same person. But if you are not 
privileged, and a privileged being wants the book you 
have got, it will instantly be called in. An English- 
man was reading one of Prescott's works on Spain, and 
had only kept it a fortnight when it was sent for. The 
King was meditating a journey to Spain, and wanted 
to get up the history beforehand. Perhaps it is in 



222 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



this sense the Library is called Royal; that the King 
is favoured at the expense of humble readers. But on 
this principle everything, not in Bavaria alone, but 
even in other lands, would bear the same title. And 
so far from grudging the King an early perusal of 
Prescott, an Englishman ought to be gratified by the 
reception English literature has met with in high places. 
For the same reason, when the Edinburgh Review does 
not appear in the periodical-room till a month after its 
arrival in Munich, every one knows that the King is 
keeping it, and no one envies him the careful study 
he bestows on it. Dr. Johnson's explanation of the 
superior attractions of a Countess may well be applied 
to the case of Royal study, for with any other mortal 
one is apt to complain bitterly. But the imagination 
is excited at the thought of a King reading the Edin- 
burgh Review ! 

And really the King is not so much given to keeping 
books as some of his subjects. One is always tempted 
to visit the slightest neglect on the part of royalty 
with much greater severity than grave offences on the 
part of the Commons, because it is far pleasanter to shy 
one's stone at a prominent object, and the chance of 
hitting is far greater. When Theodore Hook uttered 
the pious wish, u To-day is George the Fourth's birth- 
day ; God save my detaining creditor ! " he did not re- 
flect how many debtors were locked up by their tailors 
or butchers, who did not vent their feelings with the 
like acrimony on their creditors' birthdays. The books 
in the Munich Library certainly find many worse de- 
taining creditors than the King. There are professors 



KINGS AND PROFESSORS. 



223 



who have their supply not by volumes, but by shelves • 
who, instead of taking out books, take out libraries. 
One of my friends has a room full of books, I should 
judge about five hundred volumes. Some one remarked 
that a furniture waggon would be needed to take them 
all back to the library, as it probably would if they 
ever went back there. A story is current, which I 
ought to be the last to believe, as I invented it myself, 
of one of those large waggons in which families move 
their heavy articles from one house to another, being 
seen at a professor's door. The professor asked what it 
came for, was told that it came to take back his books 
to the library, and replied, " But I never send my books 
back to the library " The story is of course exagge- 
rated; but it is a genuine subject of wonder how so 
many books can go back without horse power. 

The books which are kept so long are just the books 
that ought to stay at the library, for the only books 
you would keep so long would be books of reference. 
You do not take out five hundred volumes to read ; 
that would overtax the powers of Francis Horner, who 
was remarkable for devising extensive plans of study, 
and then doing nothing towards realising them. If 
there was a convenient room, fitted with all the usual 
books of reference, there would be little excuse for tak- 
ing them away, but there is no such room. Books of 
reference generally are kept in the catalogue room, 
where there are no conveniences for consulting them, 
and where you are constantly in the way. There is no 
security for finding the book you want. Thus, the man 
who wants to verify a fact or a date, takes the book 



224 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



home with him, and finds that keeping it on his shelves, 
with a mark in the place, is less trouble than copying 
out the passage. While in the catalogue room, it may- 
be expedient to mention the catalogue, that cause of 
such universal annoyance to those who prepare it, and 
those who use it. In Munich, as in many other conti- 
nental libraries, the catalogue is not at every one's dis- 
posal. In Paris, when I asked for it, I was told, " on 
ne la communique pas/' and being fresh from the luxury 
of the British Museum, I could not remember the 
name of a book without its assistance. Here you need 
a special permission from the chief librarian ; but as a 
compensation you are saved the necessity of observing 
press-marks with that nicety that is so often fatal to 
inconsiderate readers in London. The catalogue is 
written on loose sheets, which are kept in pasteboard 
cases. 

The labour of the attendants is greatly increased by 
the reservation of the catalogue. In London, when 
you have written down your book on the ticket, the 
attendant has only to follow the directions of the press- 
mark. But in Munich you can, of course, give no 
more than the name of the author, and the name of the 
book; the attendant has to find out its situation from 
the catalogue. And even those persons who are allowed 
to use the catalogue themselves, are in the habit of 
leaving the attendants to find out the press-marks ; 
partly because there are no slips of paper or pens in the 
catalogue room. This tax on the attendants to some 
extent justifies the inconvenient regulations about be- 
speaking books, and the inconvenient hours of closing. 



CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. 225 

The library is only open from eight till one, but the 
attendants are engaged the whole afternoon in looking 
out the books for the next day. There are frequently 
two hundred books to be searched out in the catalogue, 
and got down from their places. And, in spite of the 
boasted convenience of the arrangements of the library, 
this cannot but take a long time with the small existing 
staff of attendants. The morning is pretty well occu- 
pied with getting an occasional volume for a privileged 
person, and in showing the curiosities to strangers. 
The readers at the British Museum made complaints 
enough when any of their hours of study were taken 
for showing the reading room, and students generally 
gnash their teeth at curiosities. However, they are the 
only parts of the Munich Library deemed worthy of 
mention in Murray, so they ought to be treated with 
respect. I have seen them once without very distinct 
recollection. But the other day one of the librarians 
of St. Petersburgh gave his opinion on the curiosities 
of the Munich Library, and the officials in Munich 
were not very well pleased, to judge from their fero- 
cious underscoring of the review of his book in the 
Athenceum. 

Eight to one, it will be remarked, are thoroughly 
German hours ; but even if you rise as early as the 
Germans do, you can hardly find the hours convenient. 
The morning is so naturally adapted to working at 
home, that one grudges any trespass on it, and a visit 
to the library is sure to trespass heavily. Moreover, 
the necessity of bespeaking a book the day before you 
can get it breaks into two mornings for each book, and 

l 2 



226 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



if on coming the second day you find, as is too often the 
case, that the book is lent out, you have given up two 
mornings for nothing. I suppose, however, unless con- 
siderably more was spent on the library, these defects 
could not be remedied. And it is a question if the 
Chambers would grant more than the 39,000 florins 
(£3,300), they grant at present. Great were the dis- 
putes about the money spent on Quatremere^s books, 
almost £10,000, which was merely an extraordinary ex- 
pense to buy a renowned library. All Paris cried out 
against the emigration of Quatremere's books to Ger- 
many ; yet Germany did not seem to welcome them 
with corresponding enthusiasm. I am not aware how 
much is spent on the British Museum; but I saw in a 
report that one hundred and two officials were employed 
in the department of printed books, and in the reading 
room, and I doubt if more than twenty are employed in 
Munich. Of the 39,000 florins granted to the library, 
I believe 16,000 are spent on buying books. But these 
details are not always easily ascertained. All that sta- 
tistical books tell you of the Munich Library is, that it 
is the second in Europe, exceeding the British Museum 
in the number of its volumes, and only yielding to the 
library in Paris. 

To literary men in Munich it is, of course, more im- 
portant that the money should be spent in buying 
books than that it should be spent on the arrange- 
ments. A student prefers to get a useful book after 
two days than to have speedy attendance and a scarcity 
of books. And I cannot but think that Quatremere's 
library was a great addition, so far as my own expe- 



THE WEAK POINT. 



227 



rience serves. The weak point of the Munich library 
lay in the English poets. Those of the present day 
were probably ignored ; till Tennyson's works came out 
in the Tauchnitz edition, his name was not in the cata- 
logue, and Browning is not there yet. But there was 
also a want of the classical English poets in good editions. 
Neither Scott's "Dryden" nor Scott's " Swift" are in 
the library, and till Quatremere brought the Tonson of 
1 760, the only edition of Dry den was the version of his 
works contained in the Edinburgh collection of British 
Poets. I presume this hiatus occurred from the way in 
which the library was formed. At present a very fair 
assortment of recent English works is added to the 
library; a natural preference is shown to standard 
books, and a little too much prominence given to theo- 
logy. The new books lie for some time on the Libra- 
rian's table, but they often take an inordinate time in 
finding their way into the catalogue. It is an obvious 
abuse to allow professors to take these new books 
home, and keep them by the week or the month. I 
have known books to take three months to appear in 
the catalogue, owing to their detention by some inte- 
rested reader. 

A special room is devoted to periodicals, and to this 
room an introduction is needed. The piles of German 
magazines lying on the table are enough to impress one 
with a vivid sense of the literary activity of the nation, 
especially if you open one of them by chance and find 
the length to which historical or philosophical disquisi- 
tions reach, and the solid manner in which they are 
written. "We frivolous English think our Quarterlies 



228 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



models of gravity and weight ; but the Germans send 
out monthly, or even fortnightly, piles of laborious 
matter which would hardly find acceptance even in our 
most ponderous pages. Most of the English Quarter- 
lies are taken in, though, strangely enough, the Na- 
tional Review is not among the number. The Saturday 
Review and Athenaeum represent weekly literature, and 
keep the Librarian au courant with new publications ; 
the Cornhill, and some scientific works, the monthly. 
The weekly papers are the only ones that come regu- 
larly, the rest generally take two months to arrive. 
The Times appears on the table exactly a month after 
date, being provided by one of the town reading-rooms 
when its own demand is appeased. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE THEATRE IN MUNICH. 



If I am generally liable to the accusation of judging 
things in Munich by an English standard, I must be 
acquitted as regards the present chapter. A man need 
only frequent the London theatres very sparingly to 
know their deficiencies, and if he is acquainted with the 
stages of France, Germany, and Italy, he will have little 
temptation to make comparisons in favour of those at 
home. Of course any comparison with France or Italy 
would at once lead to the remark that their impression- 
able nations are nations of actors, that with them every 
gesture is dramatic, and that consequently the stage has 
an easy task in reflecting the life that goes on around 
it, and the authors in transferring that life to their 
dialogues. But with Germany no such answer can be 
made. The Germans are far less dramatic than the 
English, they have an almost entire absence of good 
writers for the stage, and a very small number of natu- 
rally-gifted actors ; their gestures, though plentiful, are 
rude and undignified, and their organs of wit, if they 
exist at all, unguided and ill-developed. And yet you 
can go to a theatre in Germany for other reasons than 



230 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



to see one actor adapt all existing parts to the charac- 
ter he prefers to assume, and to the play' of muscles for 
which his face is most peculiarly suited. You may see 
Shakspeare's dramas acted as if they had been written 
to be acted, and not to serve as a kind of showman's com- 
mentary on a scenic diorama. If you can overcome 
your natural laziness, you may hear the unacted drama, 
and even see a poet bow his acknowledgments. When 
we remember that Schiller was able to support himself 
by his plays, and consider what would have been the 
fate of them in England, we can form some conception 
of the different state of the drama in the two coun- 
tries. 

The great objection Englishmen make to the German 
stage is very natural and well founded ; it is not amusing. 
When we go to see Robson or Buckstone we go to laugh, 
and it must be owned that we are fully gratified. More- 
over we have more serious dramas — taken from the 
French, it is true — for which we do not lack actors, 
and which do not bore us. How far the amusement 
we find is only national I cannot determine. I do not 
know what would be a Frenchman's or an Italian's 
verdict on our plays, and Germans are too easily 
amused by their own to be severe on ours. They are 
certainly amused by their own, if that is a sufficient 
answer to the English objection. They sit through 
plays which have not even the poetic merits of Schiller 
and Goethe with unexampled patience, and laugh at 
comedies which have neither dialogue nor incident. 
To an Englishman Goethe and Schiller seem more 
suited to the closet than the stage, for the poetry which 



THE GERMAN DRAMA. 



231 



raises their dramas above those of their successors is 
not a thing to be appreciated in declamation. Charles 
Lamb attempts to prove that Shakspeare would be more 
appreciated if he never was acted, although the dramatic 
power of Shakspeare is as wonderful as any of his 
secondary attributes. But Goethe is not dramatic at 
all, and Schiller has a decided leaning to the melo- 
dramatic. The idea of Faust being acted would never 
occur to any but Germans, unless the essential parts 
of Faust were taken away and the hero simplified by 
being made merely a seducer. Wallenstein, with all 
its merits, is so long that it has to be spread over three 
nights, and the amount of action in it is out of all pro- 
portion to its length. These, however, are general con- 
siderations, which are out of place in treating of the 
Munich theatre. 

It would of course be unfair to compare any German 
theatre with those of France, and perhaps it would be 
equally so to compare Munich with Vienna or Berlin. 
One of the causes of the excellence of the theatres in 
those two cities must be the amount of competition 
existing, the absence of which is a great cause of the 
poverty of Munich. The theatre is the only resort of a 
large class of people, the seats are convenient, and even 
luxurious, and there is no second house to divide the 
crowd. If there were a decent peoples' theatre instead 
of two miserable booths, the Court theatre would no 
doubt be driven to cater for the general amusement. 
But at present it is sure of being filled to suffocation, 
even in the heats of summer, whether anything decent 
is given or not. People who subscribe for their seats 



232 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



by the quarter find that they can knit in the parterre 
as comfortably as they could at home. Even the dra- 
matic critics in the Munich newspapers complain that 
the public is too easily pleased, and unfortunately the 
public has the sole power of putting any pressure on 
the management. Neither public nor management 
have paid any attention to statements of the faults of 
the system ; the management is indifferent to the claims 
of art, is content to make the theatre a mere specula- 
tion, and the public goes all the same. 

Making the theatre a mere speculation sounds well 
enough to English ears, because by that we understand 
a very different kind of speculation from the one prac- 
tised in Munich. All our managers conduct their 
theatres as speculations, and their success may generally 
be taken as some criterion of their merits. It is certain 
that they must have pleased the public in some way 
when they have attracted it to their performances, and 
we do not ask them to give high art and ideal poetry 
to empty benches. But in Munich the phrase means 
that the management trades on the indifference of the 
public. A theatre, which is supported to some extent 
by the State, and bears the sounding title of the Royal 
Court and National Theatre with an etat of £25,000, 
has a very different aim before it than one of the Eng- 
lish theatres, and must be judged by a much higher 
standard. If the public is quite indifferent to the 
merit of the performances, and goes whether they are 
good or bad, the more reason for making them good. 
In Dresden, the smaller capital of a smaller kingdom, 
there is no such carelessness and stinginess. And if 



SEATS. 



233 



Dresden is called the Northern Florence, does not 
Munich claim to be the Modern Athens ? 

Modern Athens, however, is content that its theatre 
should be the largest in Germany, should have statues 
and ornaments, marble staircases that can be described 
in guide-books, and frescoes over the portico that 
excite the admiration of art critics from the Far West. 
I am pleased to find that the interior is not neglected 
for the sake of this outward show, and that the seats 
are really comfortable. The greater part of the floor 
is occupied with what the Germans call Sperr-sitz, and 
we call orchestra stalls. The boxes are all open, with- 
out any divisions, save in the case of those allotted to 
royalty, and of one or two others in the middle. But 
all the boxes are held by subscription, and the only 
places to be had by casual theatre-goers are the stalls 
below, and a balcony running round the first tier, called 
the Galerie noble. The front seats in this balcony are, 
perhaps, the best in the house; each one has a large 
fauteuil, and a ledge in front for resting the play-bill, 
arms, or opera-glass. The back seats are uncomfort- 
able, yet with the usual absurdity of Munich arrange- 
ments the price is the same for both. A gentleman 
naturally goes to the stalls, and a lady would do the 
same if any decent garde-robe were attached to them. 
But while there is a special attendant upstairs to take 
charge of cloaks, downstairs you must go unprotected 
through the passages and across the large draughty 
hall to the general garde-robe, crowded with all the 
out-come of pit and galleries — gentlemen who very 
often do not stand on ceremony. I once saw a ruffian 



234 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



in this room, finding his progress checked by a number 
of ladies, draw back two steps and rush through them. 
Knowing that Munich enjoys a considerable police force, 
and is entirely under the control of that estimable power, 
one naturally asks why some steps are not taken to en- 
sure order, or at least decency, in such crowded places ? 
The same want of it is observable at the morning dis- 
tribution of tickets. Every one fights for the first place, 
and if a woman happens to be before a man the man 
does not scruple to tear off her shawl or her bonnet in 
order to deprive her of precedence. I do not imagine 
the lower order in Munich are naturally polite. I have 
certainly seen examples of the most extreme boorishness 
among them individually, and in a crowd the roughness 
and brutality come out in their strongest colours. Till 
lately it was impossible to get a good seat, save by being 
a friend of the Cassier, or by shoving. The Gassier 
kept the best places for some friends who applied a few 
days beforehand, and gave all others to the leaders of 
the crush. But he always denied that any places were 
reserved, and when I, after coming first in the morning, 
and finding all the front places taken, ascertained from 
some acquaintances that they had reserved their seats 
some days before, and taxed the Cassier with his par- 
tiality, he told me that I lied. A short time ago, 
however, a stop was put to this system of favouritism, 
much to the disgust of the Munich public. It is now 
possible for any one, whether known to the Cassier or 
not, to retain his place by paying a small extra sum, a 
measure which at once precludes fighting at the door, 
and unfairness within. To strangers this regulation 



ON THE BOARDS. 



235 



cannot fail to prove highly acceptable. But the Munich 
people view it in the light of a concession to strangers 
at the expense of the children, and as one half of them 
is known to the Gassier, and the other half is fond of 
fighting and shoving, it is evident that their view is 
correct. 

The stage, however, is the most important part of the 
theatre, great as the rush may be for the best places. 
And it is on the stage that the stinginess and indiffer- 
entism I have recorded have the most effect. Not 
enough pains are taken to superintend the production of 
pieces, the actors are allowed too much scope, and do 
not seem to be checked or guided by any competent 
authority. Either want of taste or parsimony at first 
provided a bad set of actors, who are neither got rid of 
now that their faults are patent, nor taught to do better. 
New actors and new singers are very rarely added to 
the company, and while great talents are allowed to 
find their way to other theatres, those who are utterly 
destitute of talent are engaged. One of the most 
popular actresses on the German stage, the daughter of 
a Municher, was coldly treated, and suffered to make 
her fortune in Vienna. It is true, that while the majo- 
rity of actors are so inferior, one or two good ones 
would only make the general poverty more apparent. 
But this is unfortunately the prevailing custom in other 
countries, when actors of some repute are managers, 
and want a monopoly of applause. They said that 
Bistori was so jealous of all competitors, that she inva- 
riably dismissed any one of her company who was above 
mediocrity ; and it is certain she travelled with such in- 



236 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



efficient helpers, that some in London likened her to a 
viper in a bundle of sticks. And yet you go to see 
Ristori alone, but you stay away when there is a dead 
level, without one striking talent to redeem it, 

As it is, enough variety exists on the Munich stage to 
show how much below mediocrity is the place of some of 
the actors. It would cost money, no doubt, to get rid of 
these, and replace them ; but with support from the state, 
and a fair certainty of support from the public, I do not 
see why it should not be done. Every now and then 
comes a star from Berlin or Vienna on his usual summer 
round, and the few who have taste^ ask despairingly 
why he cannot be engaged for Munich. Bad as the 
starring system may be, it is the only means afforded to 
some towns of comparing their actors with the general 
standard. I confess that I never knew how bad some of 
the Munich actors were till I saw them with a star from 
Vienna, in a piece which had once delighted me in 
Vienna. It was a play called the Journalists, by Gustav 
Freytag, author of " Debit and Credit/-' and in Vienna 
it really seemed an exception to the tame run of Ger- 
man comedies. But in Munich it was as heavy as ever. 
The same was the case with a French piece I saw trans- 
lated in Vienna, after seeing it acted by French actors 
— Octave Feuillet's " Roman d'un jeune homme 
pauvre." The faults of the Viennese were the more 
unpardonable here, because as a rule they are able and 
intelligent men, and because a slight glance at the novel 
would have given them every shade of the characters. 
We should not then have seen the little dry notary, the 
essence of whose being consists in the short calm man- 



RANT. 



237 



ner in which he utters all his sentiments, transformed 
into a stage honest lawyer, delivering his points as if he 
was a rhetorician, and mouthing out sounding words 
like an elocutionist. "We should not have had the rival 
lover, a man of the world, and an easy-going gentle- 
man, putting on the villain of the old melo-drama. 
For example, where the hero springs on a horse which 
won't stand, the rival in the French play says care- 
lessly, " Oh, then, he's a clown ; play him an air, 
and he'll dance/' The Viennese representative deli- 
vered this little bit of harmless sarcasm as if he had at 
last discovered the other's character, and the secret of 
his success. Again, when the French notary gives the 
hero an account of the persons among whom he is to 
live, he says of mother and daughter " caractere noble," 
in his little dry way, without moving a muscle. The 
Vienna notary rang the changes on the word noble like 
a teacher of declamation reading a passage from some 
play or speech to his pupils. In a word, he ranted. 

Rant is the most natural resource of poor actors, or 
of actors who do not understand their parts. In Mu- 
nich one has plenty of it. German pieces give great 
temptation to ranting, and Schiller's admirers must 
admit that in most of his plays — Tell always excepted — 
the players need not supply the rant themselves. Its 
introduction serves as a means of evading the old rule 
about moving others, which is laid down by Horace. 
If you would make me feel you must feel yourself ; but 
none says that to over-awe others you must be over- 
awed yourself, and those who find feeling out of their 
power take refuge in magniloquence. In comedy pure 



238 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



there is not much chance of ranting : but there are not 
many comedies on the German stage. Translations 
from the French of course occur, but not in the same 
proportion as in London. Happily the playbills are 
honest enough to confess the origin of pieces whose 
paternity it is not hard to discover, and no one enjoys 
a French play the less for not having to guess the 
changes and interpolations of the adapter. The most 
national German play is the Show-play, a name which 
embraces an enormous number of varieties. The his- 
torical play, which is not exactly tragic is, perhaps, the 
highest order of show-play, and the lowest is probably 
the domestic play, which is not exactly comic. The 
tragic poet is allowed to give a picture of a period with- 
out bringing in any denouement to disturb his reflective 
audience; the comic dramatist is allowed to depict 
family life as it may really exist without violating the 
propriety of nature by any incidents or any dialogue. 
Of course there are many pieces of the name which do 
not take advantage of these privileges, but such privi- 
leges should be granted to none. When a country is 
fortunate enough to have writers for the stage, she 
should insist on their obeying the requirements of the 
stage. You buy dramatic authors at too high a price, 
when you permit them to write without reference to the 
laws of the drama. 

A report of one year's doings in the Munich theatre 
informs us that twenty new pieces were produced, three 
of which attained to seven representations. I do not 
find, however, any statement of a point which rather 
affects this new production, if these twenty pieces were 



NAMES OF AUTHORS. 



239 



only new to Munich, or were brought out for the first 
time on the Munich stage. Many of these, I am 
aware, were written expressly for Munich ; but I doubt 
if all of them were. The number of performances at- 
tained by various authors are, fifteen by Frau Birch 
Pfeiffer, eleven each by Schiller and Scribe, ten each by 
Benedix and Oscar von Redwitz, nine by Shakspeare, 
and five each by Goethe, Lessing, and Heinrich Laube. 
In opera, Meyerbeer had sixteen representations (chiefly 
owing to Dinorah, which was given for the first time 
that year), "Weber fifteen, Mozart thirteen, Rossini and 
Halevy seven each; Donizetti's name appears once, 
and Bellini's not at all. Gluck's operas were revived, 
says the report rather pompously, meaning that one of 
Gluck's Iphigenias was given twice. 

From the dramatic report it appears that Frau Birch 
Pfeiffer is the most popular playwright in Germany, as 
she appears to be the most prolific. I must own myself 
unacquainted with her plays. In opera the predomi- 
nance of Meyerbeer is partly to be explained by his 
present popularity, partly by the Munich custom of 
having a grand opera every Sunday night. Mozart and 
Rossini, as humble composers, are good enough for one 
evening in the week which has an opera, but for Sunday 
evening the grand operas of Meyerbeer and Halevy are 
essential. The predominance of French and German 
music over Italian may seem strange at the opera, how- 
ever fitting in the concert-room and at gatherings of 
instrumentalists. That Rossini with his string of 
matchless operas should take rank with Halevy is not so 
remarkable as that both should be represented by one 



240 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



work alone. I do not remember to have seen Halevy's 
name on the Munich bills, save as composer of the 
Juive, or Rossini' s, save as composer of the Barbiere. 
Has Verdi appeared in Munich? Hardly after 1859. 
For Munich carries prejudices, which are foolish in 
themselves, into matters where they are doubly out of 
place. Auber's Muette was forbidden about the time of 
the taking of Gaeta ; and during the Italian campaign 
Schiller's William Tell and Maid of Orleans were with- 
drawn from the stage. It was but a pitiful deed on the 
part of high authorities to have the great work of so 
great a living composer silenced in order to express 
their sympathy with an infamous cause, and to show 
their admiration of heroism that was ridiculous. But 
it was natural that Munich, which was heart and soul 
with Austria, should forbid the Maid of Orleans, which 
glorified that very French valour which was then 
triumphing at Magenta; and Tell, which recorded the 
first great popular uprising against Austrian tyranny — 
the prototype of Italy's rise. 

The name of Wagner does not occur in this list of 
performances, though his operas are given in Munich. 
There was a slight attempt to get up a national move- 
ment in favour of Wagner when his Parisian experi- 
ment failed. A small popular paper in Munich called 
on all German managers to give the Tannhauser, as it 
had been hissed off by Parisian ignorance and inso- 
lence. But the managers did not respond to the call. 
It is dreary work organising music into a political 
demonstration when no one sympathises either with the 
politics or with the music. 



NATURE ON THE STAGE. 241 

On Shrove Tuesday there is always a morning per- 
formance at the theatre, attended by all the grandees of 
Munich, and at this performance a new play is gene- 
rally given. One year a very amusing piece was pro- 
duced, which is interesting to critics as being a nearer 
approach to national comedy than is generally seen even 
in original pieces, and to students of Munich customs 
as based on the much-agitated trade question. M. Es- 
quiros has remarked of our English pieces that their 
duels, their profusion of doors communicating with 
adjoining apartments sufficiently show their Gallic 
origin. Indeed it is rare to find houses on the stage 
which can be matched by existing buildings. The same 
neglect of nature is observable in a crowd of minor 
details, showing that dramatic authors do not think it 
necessary to avoid inconsistencies which would be se- 
verely censured in novelists. This Munich play was a 
striking exception. You might have matched the scenes 
in many houses in the town, just as you could have 
found the characters. Indeed, they say that many of 
the characters were studied from life by the actors, and 
that the King recognised some of his own tradesmen on 
the stage. The piece took its name from one of the 
technical terms most frequently recurring in all writ- 
ings on the trade question, " Ansassig," meaning esta- 
blished. An important word it is, for it implies marry- 
ing and settling, and the permission to use it is obtained 
with great difficulty. On the characters depended the 
interest of the piece, for situation and dialogue were not 
abundant. But the characters were new, and drawn 
from the life, and were skilfully woven into the old 

M 



242 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



comic positions. Instead of the hard-hearted uncle 
there is the master-tailor, possessed of a concession 
which ensures him a monopoly, rude and overbearing, 
insulting his customers, turning away the journeyman 
who has been with him eighteen years because he 
applies for a concession, and abusing the " radical- 
national-social-liberal " party in terms borrowed from 
one of the speakers against free trade in the Chambers. 
The dashing young lover is of course the head journey- 
man, who has been engaged an immense time to the 
demoiselle du comptoir, and who can only marry by 
obtaining a concession. The intriguing lady of a cer- 
tain age, who is to entice the lover from his allegiance 
and the uncle from his respectability, is a tailor's 
widow, who has already buried two husbands, and can 
command any further number by virtue of the Real 
Eight she has inherited. Given the system of trade 
(and it is given in another chapter) and such characters 
are predicable. Nor are they at all exaggerated ; every 
one acquainted with Munich tradesmen can tell you of 
similar instances. The master-tailor in the play tells 
his customer that his coat will be ready whenever he 
(the tailor) chooses, that he makes for the King, and 
does not care for commoners' money. A man brings 
back a coat to be mended. " I won't mend your coat 
for you/' growls the tailor. " .But you made it/' urges 
the servant. " That's an honour for the man who wears 
it," the tailor replies. Do you think this is overdrawn? 
What do you say to this ? An Englishman ordered a 
coat, was measured, and asked when it would be ready 
to be tried on. " Tried on! I make for Count This 



JULIUS CESAR K , TAILOR IN MUNICH. 243 



and Prince That, and they never have their coats tried 
on. If you want to have your coat tried on, you must 
go to some other tailor. 93 The coat comes home, and is 
large enough to accommodate another gentleman at the 
same time as the one for whom it was made. It is 
sent to the tailor to be altered, but he makes for Count 
This and Prince That, and they never want their coats 
altered. 

Sticklers for the dignity of the Court and National 
Theatre might object to this piece as wanting in reserve 
and decorum. It seemed to take generally with the 
public, though probably a great many of the spectators 
were engaged in trade, and several were on the side of 
monopoly. But the blindness of satirized persons to the 
mutato nomine is proverbial, and Julius Caesar, when 
held up to execration under another name, remains 
as unmoved as other Caesars threatened obliquely with 
his fate. 



CHAPTER XV. 



CONCERTS IN MUNICH. 



A stranger who should arrive in Munich about half- 
past five in the afternoon, would be astonished at the 
sight of parties of ladies, their evening dress partially 
hidden under cloaks, and their elaborate coiffures under 
mufflers, walking down all the streets towards one cen- 
tral point. If he inquired the meaning of it, the only 
answer would be, that one of the concerts of the Mu- 
sical Academy was to be held that evening ; and a little 
more information would make him thoroughly au fait 
with the oddity of the sight. All these ladies, not one 
of them attended by a gentleman, some in parties, some 
with a servant, some quite alone, are going an hour 
before the concert begins. Presently you meet troops 
of servants coming away from the building with the 
cloaks and mufflers their mistresses have worn, and 
from the entire absence of men you begin to think that 
Munich is peopled on the same principle as the female 
town in Tennyson's Princess. 

It isa lmost worth while going early, and taking a 
place in order to watch the process of filling. The con- 
certs of the Musical Academy are held in the Odeon of 



BAVARIAN LOGIC. 



245 



Munich, a large building, the chief hall of which holds 
a thousand people without squeezing. There are rows 
of chairs all down the body ; but they are none of them 
numbered, and no seats are reserved, save the first 
row, by courtesy, for the high society. The real reason 
for not numbering the chairs is, of course, that there 
may be no limit to the number of tickets issued ; and 
the reason why the people do not remonstrate against 
the inconvenience is, that the tradespeople, by going 
early, can get the best seats without extra charge. And 
the people of Munich never seem to object to waiting. 
The room is always full half an hour before the concert 
begins. At three quarters of an hour before, it begins 
to fill rapidly ; and at the half hour there is not another 
seat to be had. But the reason assigned for leaving the 
places to be scrambled for is, that the concerts are pri- 
vate ; that every one present is the guest of the Musical 
Academy ; and that if the seats were numbered, the 
privacy would cease. Certainly scrambling is the 
strangest sort of privacy ; and one would think that by 
securing each one a seat, and only issuing as many 
tickets as there were places, you would be treating your 
hearers more as guests than by the present method. 
But logic is not the strong point of the Bavarian mind. 

Let us suppose, however, that you have overcome the 
natural repugnance of an Englishman to go an hour 
before the time of beginning, and have taken a good 
place near the door, so as to get out among the first. 
At the three quarters the people pour in ; and if you 
are a lady, the examination of their toilettes will suffi- 
ciently occupy your time. Full dress is considered 



246 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



requisite for these concerts, though at the Opera no such 
custom prevails. Nothing but ladies ; generally family 
parties of nine or ten at a time ; certainly ten ladies to 
every gentleman. For gentlemen are not supposed to 
sit down ; so they mostly come later, and stand down 
the sides of the room. All the ladies who come first 
take seats down the middle, on either side of the pas- 
sage, instead of getting near the door, with a view of 
being spoken to by the king. Here comes a blind 
school, tied together by ropes, and led to their places, 
each one feeling the direction taken by the one before, 
and the procession headed by a man who sees. 

At about six, when the body of the hall is full, and 
no more seats to be had, save by dexterity and quick- 
ness of sight, the orchestra begins to arrive, and the 
fashionable people. These take their places in front, 
immediately behind the chairs reserved for the Royal 
Family. If you want a seat now, your only hope is to 
detect some lady sitting on two or three chairs, for the 
better exercise of her prerogative, as wearer of crino- 
line. Many ladies begin by assuming two chairs, at 
the least ; a family party of three will sometimes take 
six between them, and be gradually reduced to their 
own number. The manoeuvres of mothers who have 
come late with their daughters, or middle-aged ladies 
who have consented to chaperon young tribes, are quite 
interesting. The quick scent they have for empty 
chairs under masses of crinoline would make the for- 
tune of foxhounds, and they ferret out seats in the 
most crowded rows as trained dogs smell out truffles. 
I once noticed a lady whose soul, eyes, and ears, were 



4 



HOW TO ENJOY A CONCERT. 



247 



all devoted to advantageous places. Before the concert 
began, she had placed her young charge in different 
rows, and every minute she was up on tiptoes, examin- 
ing, and peering all round her. Now she suddenly left 
her chair, and darted off after one that was vacant, beck- 
oned one of her girls from a distant row, and trans- 
planted her. The faintest movement of a chair during 
the symphony struck her practised ear, and her head 
was instantly round in that direction. 

It is now half-past six, and we only wait for the king. 
But we could not think of beginning without him. 
Not a sign of impatience is shown by people who have 
been sitting an hour, though, time is fully up, and every 
thing is ready. The king, like ourselves, is a guest of 
the Musical Academy, and they cannot but wait for 
their most distinguished guest. At last he comes; 
everybody stands up ; he sits down ; everybody sits 
down; and the concert begins. First comes a sym- 
phony, which is generally well chosen, and always well 
played. The Munich orchestra is justly celebrated for 
its united powers, and it produces solo players on occa- 
sion who are worthy of equal praise. The poor part of 
the concert is generally the vocal part ; the pieces are 
not well chosen, the singers are poor, and the general 
execution is faulty. But to the people who frequent 
the concerts, the music seems only a secondary consi- 
deration. I do not dispute their taste ; they seem to 
enjoy music when it is good, though they do not abomi- 
nate it when it is bad. But the crowd at every concert 
is a matter of fashion and of custom. Most people go 
because the rest go ; a great many because they hope 



248 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



to be spoken to by the king ; a great many more be- 
cause their husbands have gone to their clubs, and they 
have nothing to do at home. Even if the taste of the 
people is good as regards their own music, it has no 
idea of Italian music. Chapel- master Lachner, a com- 
poser of some eminence in Germany, and admirably 
adapted for his baton of conductor, is supposed to have 
called Rossini a fiddler; and the general distaste of 
Munich for Italian music is only too notorious. Even in 
Vienna there is a want of spirit in giving Italian music ; 
the time drags, and the brio is suffered to evaporate. 
Yet in Vienna there has been an Italian opera time out 
of mind. Cimarosa composed his greatest work for 
Vienna ; Rossini was feted and idolised there. 

Besides their natural want of taste for Italian music, 
the people of Munich object to it on political grounds. 
Politics influence these things in the most remarkable 
way throughout Germany. At present the universal 
hostility felt for the French is obtruded on all questions 
of art, and the antipathy of retrograde Munich to Italy 
shows itself with equal strength. During the war of 
1859, a Erench company of actors, which was accus- 
tomed to make the tour of Germany, was not allowed 
to perform ; and a German poet, who translated some 
poems of Giusti, was accused of treason to his country. 
When Gounod's Eaust was given in Munich, a musical 
critic began his account of it by remarking that it might 
safely be applauded, as it had no affinity with the exist- 
ing dynasty. The mode of judging was strange, but 
the reason assigned was yet stranger. One of the 
librettists of Faust had written a volume of severe poems 



AN INDEX TO MUSICAL TASTE. 



249 



against the Napoleonic dynasty, called Iambes. It 
turned out, after all, that these poems were written by 
a namesake of the librettist . 

But in spite of all these unfavourable symptoms, I 
believe that many persons frequent the concerts for the 
sake of the music. There is a perceptible difference in 
the number of people according as a symphony of 
Beethoven is given, or a symphony of Schumann. And 
therefore a list of the production of the concerts will 
give not quite an exact, but certainly some idea of the 
musical taste of Munich. 

In 1860, the Musical Academy celebrated its golden 
wedding, the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. On 
this occasion a little book was published, giving a list of 
all the pieces that had been performed during this fifty 
years existence. In symphonies Beethoven bears away 
the palm, his symphony in A having been given twenty- 
three times ; Mozart is second : in overtures Beethoven 
is again the first, with sixty-eight performances; Weber is 
second, with forty-nine; Cherubini third, with forty-five; 
then Vogler thirty, Spontini twenty-one, Mehul twenty, 
Rossini sixteen, and Mozart twelve. In oratorios, 
Haydn's Creation, seventeen times ; Beethoven's Mount 
of Olives, eleven times; Mozart's Requiem, three; 
Handel's Messiah and Judas Maccabeus, two, and his 
Alexander's Feast, four. I need not go into the enu- 
meration of cantatas and arias, save to mention that in 
arias Rossini has that undisputed pre-eminence which 
should have been given him in overtures also ; but in 
the few kinds I have selected, English judgments will 
find much food for remark. We should probably not 

m 2 



250 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



care to hear Beethoven's symphonies quite so often t0 
the exclusion of his competitors, and we should cer- 
tainly find the arrangement of the oratorios both strange 
and reprehensible. The Creation is not ranked in Eng- 
land so high as it seems to be ranked in Munich, and 
our favourite Messiah is unduly neglected. Where 
is Mendelssohn too, and that Elijah, which must in- 
augurate every musical festival in England ? There is 
not one mention of it in the book. Paulus has been 
given once it seems, and in other branches Mendelssohn 
is not absent from the scene. But that monopoly of 
musical genius that many English minds would accord 
him, that constant repetition and constant imitation of 
our concert-leaders, is not his in Germany. I do not 
think it is any disrespect to his name to prefer the 
works in which he succeeded to those in which he fell 
very far short of his models, to praise his really admi- 
rable works, and abstain from hearing those which were 
beyond him. 

To me the injustice shown by the Musical Academy 
to Italian music, far outweighs any injustice to German. 
It is possible that singers may be wanted to do justice 
to the oratorios of Handel, as the vocal part of the 
concerts is always the weakest. And we English are 
become by constant hearing as great idolators of Handel 
as Germans are of Beethoven. I own that I have a 
thorough English appreciation of Handel ; but it is 
entirely owing to my English opportunities of hearing 
him. No other nation, however musical it may be, has 
the same love for him as the English. North Germans 
of musical education have very little acquaintance with 



CIMAROSA. 



251 



him, while in Italy you would find his name positively 
unknown. But I cannot by any such arguments ex- 
cuse the neglect and the ill favour shown by Munich to 
the music of Italy. A nation so cultivated as the Ger- 
mans ought to have greater tolerance towards the styles 
of other nations, and Munich, which prefers Strauss to 
Mendelssohn, ought not to sacrifice Rossini to Bee- 
thoven. The deaf Polyphemus of Vienna might growl 
in his cavern against the Ulysses who was sailing pros- 
perously away, but there is no need for Beethoven's 
admirers to echo his injustice. "We shrug our shoulders 
when reminded that Beethoven called Rossini a scene 
painter, who might have been a good musician if his 
master had flogged him more, but we can but sneer 
when Capellmeister Lachner calls Rossini a fiddler. 

Nor is this injustice merely confined to the more 
modern Italian school. I once went to the opera in 
Munich to hear Cimarosa's "Matrimonio Segreto," a 
work of such fame and eminence, that to this day the 
story is told how the Emperor of Austria had it given 
twice over the same evening. It contains, too, an air 
for the tenor (the celebrated Pria che spunti), which is 
considered by good authorities the first tenor air in the 
world, superior even to Mozart's // mio tesoro. The 
air would be remarkable enough from its origin; for it 
is said that Cimarosa was walking about the hills that 
surround Prague, when it suddenly came into his mind. 
One would think that in giving such an opera, the 
Musical Academy could supply a tenor fit to sing more 
than concerted pieces, and would feel bound to devote 
some care and energy to the study and production. So, 



252 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



far from this, the gem of all opera buffas was turned 
into a low German Posse ; one of those farces given in 
suburban booths or beer gardens. Some of tbe best 
duets were left out, many other airs were turned into 
recitations, and the gem of the whole, the air which I 
went to the opera to hear, not so much as hinted at. 
In a capital which had the slightest pretension to mu- 
sical taste, such an outrage could not pass unnoticed ; 
but not one of the audience seemed to be aware that 
anything was wanting. Herr Lachner did not think it 
necessary to direct the performance himself, sufficiently 
showing his estimation of Cimarosa. After this, who 
would say that the play of Hamlet, with the part of 
Hamlet left out, is a phrase that has been too often 
repeated ? 

These thoughts are supposed to pass through our 
minds during the symphony. After the symphony 
there is a pause, generally of half an hour; and this 
pause is the most characteristic part of the concert. 
The king now goes round the hall, speaking to the 
people. You now see why all they that came first took 
seats down the middle, and by watching attentively you 
enjoy a most original and most exciting spectacle. The 
reigning king, Maximilian, seldom appears at these 
concerts, and his journeys round the room are far less 
complete than those of his father. It is the ex-king, 
Ludwig, who generally comes to the concerts, and whose 
proceedings are so well worth watching. I confess I do 
not go merely for the purpose of seeing him, as many 
of the audience seem to do ; but in writing of the con- 
certs he is certainly the chief figure. He first goes 



"SO HE WENT BOBBING AROUND ! " 253 

round the court circle at the top, with a word to the 
chief nobles, and a few smirks for each of the ladies. 
Then he suddenly darts off down the room, and is seen 
u bobbing around/' like the refrain of that American 
song which has been naturalised in England. 

It must be premised that in figure and character the 
old king is decidedly strange. Look, voice, gestures, 
are all funny. He is given to saying rude things, 
which of course cannot be resented. He is quite deaf, 
though he believes that he was cured of deafness by 
Prince Hohenlohe's miracles, and that he can hear as 
well as the rest of mankind. For in Prince Hohen- 
lohe's miracles faith was the essential, and generally 
faith was all that came of them. If you submitted 
yourself to the prince, and were not cured, he answered 
that your faith failed ; and he warned you beforehand 
that, unless you had faith, no cure could be worked on 
you. King Ludwig's faith certainly did not fail, nor 
has it failed yet; but unfortunately his deafness has 
kept pace with it. He won't allow people to speak 
loud to him, nor to speak close to his ear, telling them 
that he hears perfectly. As a rule, he does not hear a 
word, and generally abuses people for not speaking loud 
enough, and then abuses them again if they shout. At 
the concerts, however, the replies are given more in 
pantomime than in speech; and you can often tell 
from the other end of the room what is being said, as 
well as the king who is close. You can always tell 
where he is, by seeing a respectful circle of faces and a 
head bobbing violently in the midst. There is a large 
bump on his forehead, which is supposed to have arisen 



254 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



from one of these bobs ; for he is also in the habit of 
pulling people towards him and speaking close in their 
ears. 

There are some anecdotes recorded of him in con- 
nexion with these concerts. 

It is said he once went up to a young lady, to whom 
he was a stranger, and began to question her. " Mar- 
ried?" he asked, in a loud tone. 

"No, your majesty." 

" Children?" he went on, not having heard the first 
answer. 

"No," exclaimed the young lady; this time loud 
enough for the word to catch the royal ear. 

But in German, and especially in South German, the 
word no and the number nine are pronounced exactly 
alike ; and the king interpreted the young lady's answer 
as being numeral instead of negative. 

"Nine children !" he said; "too many, too many !" 

I was myself present when the following one occurred. 

A young Jewess, who kept a shop, and was very vain 
of her personal appearance, went very early to the con- 
cert, and took a seat in the middle. Being short of 
stature, she had added several inches in her coiffure; 
and, it is needless to add, had dressed herself up to her 
coiffure. When she saw the king coming, she stepped 
forward, so that he could not fail to see her ; and no 
doubt she expected a compliment. But he was not as 
much captivated as the admirers who daily frequented 
her shop ; and he burst forth, " Not pretty, not pretty 
at all! more likely hideous. Too high; too high!" 
putting his hand about a foot over his head, in allusion 



ROYAL AFFABILITY. 



255 



to her coiffure. And then he turned back to a lady 
near, and said, "That's true; isn't it? Not at all 
pretty?" 

Generally, however, to judge from the pleased faces 
of the audience, the king is more easily suited. The 
proud, happy smiles and the minute curtseys of the 
elder ladies, with whom he holds long familiar chats, 
while the orchestra is waiting, speak to their honest 
contentment. The myth of the sunflower, always turn- 
ing to the sun, is here a reality. The whole room basks 
in the smiles of royalty. Meanwhile strangers are in- 
dignant at the enormous pause between the parts, and 
wonder at the excess of loyalty which permits no stamp- 
ing or shuffling. But as every French soldier was said 
to carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack, so every one 
in the hall thinks the king may come round that way 
and speak to him. Expectation sits in the air, and 
scarcely misses the more prosaic seat that has been 
purchased by so long an attendance. 

The excellence of the orchestra, and the presence of 
the court, make these concerts the principal ones in 
Munich. But they are by no means the only ones. 
Every now and then an organist of one of the churches, 
or a quartet of the young musicians, or a travelling 
virtuoso, hires a room and performs ; though generally 
with results very different from those I have described. 
A winter or two back came a brace of English violinists, 
brothers, who trusted too far to the artistic reputation 
of Munich, and did not clear their expenses. A Prus- 
sian gentleman, however, who has been settled a little 
time at Munich, and who gives chronological perform- 



256 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



ances on the piano, is more fortunate. It must be 
owned that his play is perfect, and to some extent free 
of the coxcombry which pianists are so much given to 
affecting. Perhaps he has " taken out" enough cox- 
combry in his general appearance, and in the French 
name he has manufactured by a literal translation of 
his original German name, to be able to spare the piano 
all the airs and affectations of ordinary players. 

But we breathe a very different atmosphere from 
that of these gas-lit rooms, brilliant though the com- 
pany, and brilliant the play, when we get out into the 
open air, to one of the many gardens about Munich. 
How pleasant it is to sit on a bench and listen to the 
music of some military brass band or society of in- 
strumentalists ! It is May ; but this year everything 
is early, and the leaves already form a dense canopy 
around and above. The air is thick with the smell of 
lilac, which in its different shades of hue is massed on 
the bushes. The sounds of merry laughter and voices 
singing glees come, with the splash of oars, from the 
near lake. The benches are thronged with quiet family 
parties, drinking their coffee or beer; the ladies knitting 
as hard as ever, and the gentlemen smoking. In one 
corner, the children of several families have got toge- 
ther, into a large swing-boat, and are being swung by 
an energetic boy in his shirt-sleeves. And so perfect 
is the picture of enjoyment and content, that even 
professors of theology pause as they pass by, and look 
with friendly eyes on the paradise of their humbler 
countrymen. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



BEER. 



For what is Munich most celebrated ? For Art, would 
be the reply of passing visitors, learned in guide-books. 
But the inhabitants pay very little regard to this dis- 
tinction; art has had no civilising or ennobling effect 
on them ; their knowledge of it is small, and their ap- 
preciation small; and the chief names in Munich art 
are of men from other countries. Liebig, would be 
the reply of men of science. But Liebig is more known 
in England than in Munich, and certainly more justly 
valued. The only feeling a true Bavarian has for Liebig 
is jealousy; is he not a North German and a Protestant? 
In his eyes social progress is of more account than fer- 
vent faith, and he believes that a knowledge of the laws 
of our being does more to promote the welfare of a 
nation than blind trust in a continual overruling of 
those laws. He must be put out of the question, and 
Art being also excluded, only one answer remains. 
Munich is most celebrated for its beer. 

Listen to the conversation of Bavarians, it turns on 
beer. See to what the thoughts of the exile recur, to 
the beer of his country. Sit down in a coffee-house or 



258 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



eating-house and the waiter brings you beer unordered, 
and when you have emptied your glass, replenishes it 
without a summons. Tell a doctor the climate of 
Munich does not agree with you, and he will ask you 
if you drink enough beer. Arrive at a place before the 
steamer or train is due, and you are told you have so 
long to drink beer. Go to balls, and you find that it 
replaces champagne with the rich and dancing with the 
poor. (I once went to a servants' ball and stayed there 
some time; but when I came away dancing had not 
begun, and all the society was sitting as still as ever 
drinking beer.) Moreover Bavarian beer goes to all 
other towns in Germany, and is drunk in each with 
more rapture than its native beverage. You get it in 
Stockholm, and it is even imitated in Norway, though 
the strong flavour of turpentine that hovers through 
the Norwegian "Bayerskt 01" is an addition, and not 
an improvement. Aye, Paris with all its most exquisite 
wines is not too proud to put placards of Biere de 
Baviere in its windows, to vie with the porter-bier 
(stout) on the cartes of the most fashionable restaurants. 

I am sure that many a traveller after spending his 
morning in the galleries and churches, after being 
marched through the palace and round the large empty 
frescoes during weary hours, has felt real pleasure in 
sitting calmly down behind a stone-mug of cool beer, 
and has called it the genuine art of Munich. Here for 
the first time he finds life and soul, nature and expres- 
sion. He sees the people enjoying themselves, and 
knows more of their habits and their way of thinking 
than any number of the sights can teach him. And as 



GENUINE ART. 



259 



he stretches his weary limbs and rests his burning eyes, 
and his head begins to feel less giddy, and his brain 
expands again to its natural size, he asks why this 
national life was not encouraged and developed; why 
nothing was left to grow out of this popular taste in- 
stead of the crude unmeaning art that has been forced 
on a nation without feeling for it ? How much more 
genuine it would have been, in Mr. Ruskin's sense of 
the word, if King Ludwig had built a large beer-hall 
and let all his artists adorn it with frescoes that could 
speak to the people, instead of all his temples and 
Italian copies and histories of saints and mediaeval Ger- 
mans ! And when the traveller looks back gratefully 
on his summers abroad, Munich is associated solely 
with his stone-mug of beer, a pleasant picture of pe- 
rennial coolness amidst " the dust and din of London 
life." 

It is, indeed, much to be regretted that the goddess 
of Munich joy and coolness, should not have chosen a 
fitter dwelling. Art, both ancient and modern, is 
splendidly housed ; the old pictures have their Italian 
palace, and the statues their Ionic temple, while the 
new pictures have a large and convenient building 
which typifies modern art as aptly as palace and temple 
typifies the ancient. Learning has its noble Byzantine 
library, war its colonnade, and victory its triumphal 
arch. Royalty is enclosed by a street front in imitation 
of the Pitti and a Palladian garden front; everything 
has its splendid halls and its copious ornaments ; — only 
beer, the darling of the people, the genius that presides 
over all their festivities, has no worthy abode. The 



260 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Court brew-house, the chief resort of all beer-drinkers, 
and the producer of the best beer, is disgracefully neg- 
lected. You find your way through narrow streets, old 
remnants of medievalism that still exist close to the 
centre of modern civilisation, to a bare place with low 
doorways and a mean aspect. This small square is 
called the Platzl, and one house in it is celebrated as 
having been the residence of the composer Orlando di 
Lasso, who died in 1599; the house still bears his 
name, and sells beer under it. Under one of the low 
archways in this square you pass, and come to a yard 
full of people. Some stand in groups in the middle, 
holding glasses of beer in their hands ; if a cask hap- 
pens to stand there it is used alternately as a chair and 
a table. The yard is long and narrow, and on one side 
a number of tables stand out from the wall, looking 
more like stalls in a stable with their high wooden par- 
titions and the narrow roof over them to keep off the 
rain. On the other side of the yard is a small doorway 
which leads to the kitchen and bar. Men pass in and 
out bringing back plates of meat or cheese, or often a 
sausage and bread from the kitchen, and stop to buy 
radishes from an itinerant vendor just outside the door. 
The bar, if the name be at all applicable, has a fountain 
of running water, and two stands of stone mugs, one on 
each side of the fountain. You take a mug and wash it 
at the spout, then walk, to the table and have it filled 
from a cask. With this you go in quest of a table, and 
if you can find one empty, and a bit of newspaper to 
wipe off the cheese parings and turnip parings accumu- 
lated upon it, you may consider yourself settled. An 



OLD STAGERS. 



261 



old man hovers about the tables, and when your first 
quart is drunk you may be able to dispense with the 
trouble of getting yourself a second. After each quart 
such trouble becomes greater, and the old man's assist- 
ance will be the more willingly remunerated the more 
often you feel bound to call for it. 

If the old man were not called too often, and had 
time enough left him to write his autobiography, a most 
instructive volume might be produced. A place which 
is the rendezvous of all the nationalism in Munich, and 
which has its old habitues, must have witnessed many 
singular scenes, and must have curious anecdotes to 
relate. Those old men who sit day after day in the 
Court brew-house, surely they might be as interesting 
characters as the old club frequenters in London. But 
it is not worth one's while to spend one's time drinking 
beer in this miserable yard on the chance of picking up 
some good characters among them; one might risk the loss 
of one's powers of observation and one's memory if one 
drank enough beer to occupy the time of one's stay, and 
without drinking beer, how could one stay in such a 
place? Attempting to get characters of old topers in 
the plural, one might only succeed in getting the cha- 
racter of one in the singular, and though at first the 
danger seems small, there is no knowing what might 
not be done by the force of habit. How else explain 
the daily presence of professors and men of learning ; 
how else account for the first authorities on abstruse 
subjects of study passing every evening of their lives in 
the company of beer? Yet one would like to know 
with certainty if all the stories one hears is true. One 



262 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



would gaze, not exactly with admiration but with the 
feelings of a scientific explorer, on people who drink 
thirty quarts of beer a-day ; and one cannot accept 
from mere hearsay that story of beer drunk for a wager, 
when the victor drank eighty quarts at a sitting. Why 
does not some Munich artist give us a picture of the 
Hofbrauhaus or the Bockkeller, as a companion to 
Hogarth's Beer Street? Faithfully rendered, such a 
picture would serve to fill up the want of the old man's 
autobiography, and would enable us to judge better of 
the truth of the anecdotes in circulation. Nor, if 
rumour is to be believed, are the painters of Munich 
ignorant of these places. They would hardly feel any 
unwillingness in making studies of Prse-Raphaelite 
truthfulness for such a picture. 

The scene I have described is the normal state of the 
Hofbrauhaus. Summer and winter the same drinking 
goes on, and it is reported that in the olden days, be- 
fore the discovery of the Bavarian Highlands, the cool 
beer cellar was the summer retreat of the Munich 
world. But there are other places of resort, which are 
only open at certain times of year. Two sorts of 
Munich beer are only allowed limited times for brew- 
ing ; the celebrated Bock which is brewed and drunk 
only in May, and the Salvator beer only in March. 
Old privileges and old restrictions are the causes both 
of the permission to brew these stronger kinds, and of 
the short period in which they may be dispensed. A 
controversy took place in the Munich newspapers 
touching the origin of Bock, one party declaring that 
it owed its strength and excellence to its being brewed 



ORIGIN OF BOCK. 



263 



on the English principle ; the other that it came origi- 
nally from Eimbeck in Hanover, adding, that the word 
Bock is only a corruption of Eimbeck. One would 
gladly believe the first story if the arguments against 
it were not strong, for the excellence of Bock is such 
that English brewers should be proud to recognise it 
as their offspring. It is said that Maximilian the First 
of Bavaria, the Elector or Kurfiirst, whose name occurs 
so often in the History of the Thirty Years' War, and 
who alone of all the principal actors in that drama 
survived to the end, consulted an English doctor, whose 
acquaintance he had made in some of his campaigns, 
about the health of the Electress. The doctor recom- 
mended her porter, and ordered several casks of it. 
The Kurfurstin thrived under the treatment ; but as it 
cost very much to have the casks brought from Eng- 
land, and as the length of the journey caused much 
of the drink to be spoiled, the Kurfiirst sent his head 
brewer to England to study the English system of 
brewing. In a year the brewer returned, and the first 
porter-beer concocted on the English principle was 
brewed in 1623, and the first glass of it put on the 
table on the 12th of October, the name-day of the Kur- 
fiirst. At first it was only used medicinally, but after a 
time it was generally adopted as a drink, and brewed 
fourteen days before and fourteen days after Corpus 
Christi, from the middle of May to the middle of June. 
In answer to this story it is urged that in a paper, ex- 
isting in the archives of Munich, an Erfurt burgher is 
authorised to transport Eimbeck beer to Munich in 
1553; that in one of the accounts of the Munich Court, 



264 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



dated 1574, Eimbeck beer is also mentioned; and that 
in a police decree of 1616 the name Bock is found as 
the name of a beer to be brewed only for the sick. I 
fear these facts are sufficiently conclusive to deprive 
England of the glory of originating Bock. But we are 
not altogether deprived of it, even if our brewers did 
not supply the model ; for the statement which annuls 
the claim of England gives us the more reason to 
rejoice in the joy of Hanover. 

Even if we are still inclined to doubt of the origin of 
Bock, unwilling to surrender our national monopoly of 
all good beer, and saying with the hero of Maud, " I 
know not whether it came in the Hanover ship," we must 
at least admit its excellence, a point on which there can 
be no dispute. I could linger long on the subject were 
it not that a friend has already exhausted it in the 
columns of the Parthenon. And as I can add nothing 
to his description I must be silent, merely quoting the 
words in which Heine has preserved the memory of 
Bock, in the exquisitely satirical poem he addressed to 
Dingelstedt on taking the direction of the Munich 
Theatre : — 

"That's a lovely situation! 

Griorious Bock, too, sparkles here, 
Phantasy, imagination 

Stirring up, the best of beer." 

I cannot call to mind the tradition relating to the 
origin of Sal vat or beer. Of course there is some tradi- 
tion to account for the privilege of brewing it being 
granted, and for the especial time chosen for brewing 
it. The weeks before Easter are the time, and a brewer 



SALVATOR BEER. 



265 



living beyond the Au suburb is the privileged person. 
The right bank of the Isar rises in a hill looking down 
on the flat ground on the left bank where the town of 
Munich is built, and this high bank is mounted during 
the month of March by many weary pilgrims to the 
refreshing shrine. Before you reach the shade of trees 
varied by fluttering flags and attracting with the sound 
of music, you pass the brewery with a little fountain 
sparkling in the sun, and a neat airy look of well-being. 
A few paces further is the scene of action. You enter 
grounds which want dusting and keeping, and find 
tables set out among the trees, and seats occupied by 
men and women of all classes. At the end is a large 
shed with flags over the doorway, and within are crowds 
of people waiting for their stone mug of beer. Radishes 
wander about as in the Hofbrauhaus, and plates of 
meat and bread come out of the shed as well as beer. 
It was a bright sunny day when I came to the Salvator 
Cellar with a comrade, and we chose seats in the shade 
while we drank. All the tables were full, and half 
Munich was either there already, or coming there. The 
band played at intervals, and every tongue was loosed 
by the strong beer. For Salvator is the strongest of all 
that is brewed in Munich, and is eschewed by many 
prudent topers. Men who drink beer all day, and then 
take a glass of Bock every morning in May as a cure 
for drinking too much all the year round, avoid Sal- 
vator, or take it in extreme moderation. People are 
supposed to get drunk in March, and every one who 
does not walk with the firmness of a sentry is said to 
be suffering under the influence of the season. As we 

N 



266 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



came back from our moderate indulgence, my comrade 
was taxed with an unsteady gait by friends who met us, 
though he was a north German and averse to deep pota- 
tions. The tongue, however, is apt to be loosed after 
Salvator beer, and if the Pere Bouhours was to meet 
Germans returning from that draught, he might answer 
his famous question in the affirmative. Est~ce qu'un 
Allemand pent avoir de V esprit ? would not again be 
uttered, unless French wine- drinkers should allege that 
the German wit was only esprit de Mere. But a Ger- 
man has such a hearty contagious way of making jokes 
that you cannot resist chiming in with his laughter. 
I remember as we walked back through the Au suburb, 
which is so singular a contrast to the regularity of Munich, 
its low village cottages piled together in face of some 
grand building, and its out-of-the-way streets seeming 
a poor threshold to the great new church with the 
Gothic pinnacles and painted glass, that we stopped be- 
fore a little hovel on which was written "Real beer 
tavern." Next door to it was a similar cottage labelled 
Upholsterer's, and a small piece of a bedstead was 
propped up outside to certify the fact. Nothing larger 
than a chair could have got in at the door of the uphol- 
sterer's, nor could a stout drinker have found his way 
out of the door of the beer-house. a But observe the 
importance of the adjective/' said my companion. 
"Real, you see, emphatically real — not ideal." Just 
after this he was accused of unsteadiness in his gait. 

The Bavarians attribute the excellence of their beer 
to the strictness of the regulations on brewing. Twice 
a year the Government fixes the price at which beer is 



COURT INSTITUTIONS. 



267 



to be sold, one price for summer beer, another for 
winter. If a brewer, or beerhouse-keeper, sells any 
below the Government price, he is fined, just as he 
would be if his tankards were not of the right measure. 
By such stringent rules it is supposed that a monopoly 
of beer by the great houses is prevented, and the 
natural results of a monopoly, carelessness and bad- 
ness. Yet if there is such a desire to banish monopoly 
in this point, why is it left to flourish in all others? 
Why does restriction, which produces such bad effects 
in the general trade of Munich, produce good ones in 
the matter of beer ? The trade laws are in all other 
matters promoters of monopoly, and encourage bad 
workman ship. It is also worthy of remark that the 
Court brewery is about the only institution of the kind 
that flourishes. The Royal Porcelain Manufactory is 
so celebrated for the bad quality of its ware that at- 
tempts are at last being made to have it transferred to 
private hands. The Bronze Foundry never paid its 
expenses, nor turned out good workmanship till it 
passed out of the hands of royalty. But the Hofbrau 
beer is universally admitted to be the best in Munich, 
and about mid- day the crush of servants bringing their 
jugs, or masspots, for their masters' dinner is very great. 
For in Munich it is not the custom to have beer in 
casks or in bottle. Everybody sends out just before 
dinner, generally to the nearest beer-house, for the 
quantity required. In London the experiment perhaps 
would hardly answer, for public-house beer has not 
quite the reputation of Bass. But there are very many 
good beer-houses in Munich in proportion to the extent 



268 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of the town, and if one does not suit, it is easy for the 
servant to go to another. About the dinner hour you 
meet servants of every rank going in quest of beer. 
Not only those families who cannot afford to buy it 
by casks, or to drink it in bottles, but all families, from 
the least to the greatest. I have never seen the royal 
flunkeys walking across the street to bring the Queen 
that beer she is so fond of drinking, but I have seen a 
very grand footman in livery strolling leisurely home 
with a great glass jug of beer in his hand. The beer 
glasses of Germany are well known, and I think Mu- 
nich produces as good specimens as Bohemia or Hun- 
gary. You may give as much as £12 for a very refined 
pint glass with exquisite carving, and a top of oxidised 
silver on the shield of which your crest is engraved. 

Little more need be said of the beer-gardens of Mu- 
nich after the Salvator Cellar. With slight variations, 
a description of the wine-gardens of the Rhine and of 
the out-of-door places of resort in Berlin and Dresden 
would apply to them, and so much has been written on 
the subject that nothing new remains to be told. Who 
has not read of the music playing in one part, and the 
tables set out all round, the happy family groups knit- 
ting or sewing while sipping their coffee, or drinking 
their beer? Gardens such as these abound in the 
neighbourhood of Munich, in the English garden and 
up the Isar, besides those in the more open part of the 
town. There is an establishment on an island at the 
end of the new Maximilian Strasse, called the Prater, 
where are fireworks in summer and masked balls in the 
Carnival. In another part are great halls which are 



THE DIGNITY OF PHILOSOPHY. 



269 



used for balls and assemblies, dropping for a time their 
exclusive connection with beer. The sarcasms that 
Byron showered on the romantic names of dismal 
streets in London suburbs might not be inapplicable 
to the names of some of these places. " The Meadow " 
seems almost too idyllic a title for the scene of masked 
balls frequented by the lower orders ; the Elysium is 
only the Elysium of people without refinement of taste, 
and the Westend hall would not be accepted as having 
any connexion with the west end of London. There is 
a Schiller garden and a beer-house called after the 
composer Orlando di Lasso, but a man who wanted to 
call his beer-house after the philosopher Schelling was 
prevented. The magistrate, with whom the decision 
rested, said it was not meet that the name of Schelling 
should be coupled with a beer-shop, and thus the phi- 
losopher of Munich was refused the modern title to 
eminence, the fame accorded to Gibbon. "Gibbon/' 
says Mr. Bagehot, in his Essays, " still retains a fame 
unaccorded to any other historian : they speak of the 
Hotel Gibbon; there never was even an Estaminet 
Tacitus, or a Cafe Thucydides." It is amusing to con- 
jecture the reasons which prevailed on the magistrate to 
refuse the permission. Is Schelling so much more 
reverend than Schiller; is philosophy less addicted to 
beer than poetry ? Or was it that the sagacious magis- 
trate feared the introduction of anything ideal into the 
real world of beer-houses, and knowing the doubt and 
distraction that have been caused by German philoso- 
phy, would have no such cobwebs floating in the minds 
of the votaries of beer ? 



CHAPTER XVII. 



HOUSES. 



For some time past the demand for houses in Munich 
has greatly exceeded the supply, and the usual conse- 
quences of an understocked market have arisen. Rents 
have increased out of all proportion to other prices; 
house-owners have grown insolent and tyrannical; spe- 
culators have run up bad buildings, and made ill-gotten 
gains, which have prospered; and families have been at 
the mercy of all three. Moreover, the law in Munich 
is on the side of the owner, and the tenant has no pos- 
sible redress. Now, at last, steps have been taken to 
create a much greater supply of lodgings, and to alter 
the iniquitous law against lodgers. But in the mean- 
time let me sketch the state of dwelling-houses in Mu- 
nich, and put down my sad experiences. 

As in continental towns generally, we inhabit floors. 
Much has been said for and against this system, to 
which Englishmen submit willingly enough in Paris 
and Rome, but which they consider unsuited to English 
notions in London. The houses in Victoria Street are 
pointed to as proofs of this assertion ; though the enor- 
mous rents demanded, the gloomy and low situation, 



HOUSES IN FLATS. 



271 



are probably better reasons for their failure than any- 
thing in the English character. Few, even, of the 
richer classes in Munich, have a house to themselves, 
save in the case of people living in small houses beyond 
the limits of the actual town, and the majority of houses, 
both old and new, were built on the principle of sepa- 
rate floors. One inconvenience this system certainly 
possesses, you cannot buy your own house. If you buy 
it, that is, you must buy other people's at the same 
time ; from a tenant you must become a landlord. In 
the present defenceless state of tenants they would be 
glad enough if each could buy his own floor ; but few 
would care to rise suddenly into the onerous and de- 
tested position of landlord of a four-storied house, even 
if they could afford the outlay. 

But, even with this disadvantage, the flat system has 
many points superior to the ordinary English manner of 
building. Being all on the same floor, the rooms are 
almost invariably en suite, convenient, as giving you 
a greater command over your space, a power of mar- 
shalling your rooms when you wish to receive company, 
and as enabling you to avoid cold passages. The mul- 
tiplication of doors is perhaps an evil, especially when 
the primitive notions of Munich architects have led 
them to put the doors in the most inconvenient places. 
Moreover, as Alfred de Musset has proved in one of his 
exquisite Proverbes, II faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou 
fermee, both of which alternatives are apt to be incon- 
venient. Again, the porte cochere is an immense con- 
venience, which ladies going out to balls or parties in 
the snow or rain can perfectly appreciate. It has always 



272 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



been a wonder to me how a lady can come down those 
three steps that lead from the door of a London house 
to the street, through those open pillars that do not 
give the slightest protection, and then cross the side 
pavement to get to her carriage, without being drenched, 
her satin shoes ruined, and her dress destroyed. Yet, 
unless a lady is carried in a sedan chair from the hall 
into her carriage, as a shell is put in the mouth of a 
gun, I cannot conceive her escaping. With the porte 
cochere there is no fear of the least damage to ball dress 
or ball shoes. Yet there is a disadvantage attending on 
the porte cochere, which is most sensibly felt in the 
crowded part of a town. It implies a court in the 
centre of the house, and rooms looking on that court ; 
of course, in the centre of the town there cannot be 
much room allotted to this court, and the rooms that 
look on it are necessarily dark and dreary, each one 
moreover commanded by the windows of all the others. 
The ghastliness of many of the rooms looking into 
these courts in the older parts of Munich can hardly be 
imagined, save by those who have seen the gloomy side 
of German life. In the freer quarters the objection has 
been overcome by making the entrance at the back 
under cover, so that the front of the lower floor is not 
broken, and there is a free circulation round the house. 
But of course this can only be done where you have 
sufficient space at your disposal. And there is, after 
all, no great choice between back rooms, and rooms on 
a court. 

The disadvantages attendant on Munich houses do 
not spring from this or that system of building, but 



f 



THE POWER OF LANDLORDS. 273 

from bad laws, bad landlords, and bad building, all three 
to some extent the growth of the Bavarian character. 
To begin with the landlords ; the power that excess of 
demand has given them has made them in the highest 
degree despotic and overbearing. I find that this class 
of beings is generally unpopular; in Paris they are 
made the constant butt of caricaturists and comic 
writers, and philosophers have seriously discussed the 
advisability of hanging one-half of them. The remedy 
would probably have some good effects in Munich. 
Here the house-owners exact the most absurd conditions 
from their tenants. You see advertisements of apart- 
ments to be let only to childless families, as if a family 
could dispose of its children at a moment's notice, to 
please the landlord's fancy. In furnished apartments, 
where there are rich carpets and elegant fittings, you 
can understand some such clauses as these being in- 
serted ; but in Munich houses this exaggerated delicacy 
is peculiarly out of place. Again, I heard of a land- 
lord who gave his tenant notice to quit because the 
tenant's wife did not bow to the landlord's wife. And 
not only are these men thus exacting and uncivil, but 
they will not take care of their own houses. Whatever 
repairs have to be made it is useless to expect the land- 
lord to make them. Their first word is, when you go 
to look at a house, " I do nothing and if the floors 
are broken, the paint rubbed off, the paper torn, you 
need expect no remedy from them. If you are incau- 
tious enough to do anything yourself towards making 
the house more comfortable, beware ! So far from feel- 
ing gratitude to you for repairing his property and doing 

n 2 



274 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



his duty, the landlord instantly raises your rent. Houses 
in Munich are taken from six months to six months, 
and fourteen days are allowed after each term day for 
landlord and tenant to make up their minds. If, there- 
fore, you come in at Michaelmas, and begin to paper 
your room before the fourteen days are expired, the 
landlord is sure to wait on you at the end of the four- 
teen days, with the announcement, that after next term 
you must pay so much more rent. To such a pitch is 
the despotism of landlords carried, that a story was 
spread about Munich to the effect, that the editor of a 
paper, whose politics were obnoxious to genuine Bava- 
rians, could not find a house to hold him ; and though 
this was not true, yet it was very difficult for the news- 
paper in question to find an office. One editor had to 
buy a house, and become proprietor in Munich, owing 
to a league that was formed against him, and many 
other tenants would be happy if they had the same 
command of money, and could also be independent of 
the race of owners. 

An Englishman will naturally ask, — Why not make 
the man give you a lease? And many Germans ask 
the same question. The lease would get rid of all the 
difficulties, draw the teeth of the landlords, give rest to 
the tenants, and after a time even the landlords would 
discover that it was more their interest to behave 
honestly and uprightly than to turn a few knavish pen- 
nies, and perhaps be ruined in the end. But here the 
law steps in with its admirable provisions. There is a 
little clause in Munich law which says, " Kauf bricht 
Miethe," that is, sale breaks hire. A more admirable 



STRENGTH OF LANDLORDS — THE LAW. 275 

device for worrying the tenant can hardly be conceived. 
If a man buys the house in which you live he can in- 
stantly raise your rent, and, if you refuse to pay any 
more, can turn you out at a fortnight's notice. You 
may have a lease for any number of years, but it is 
null and void. And the especial disadvantage that meets 
you is this, that if you are turned out at a fortnight's 
notice in the middle of term you can find no other house 
to take you in. The evil has become so palpable, and 
has grown to so unbearable a pitch, that a petition was 
presented to the last Chamber by many inhabitants of 
Munich, begging that the clause might be rescinded. 
It can easily be imagined what a field was here pre- 
sented to knavish speculators. One man runs up a 
house when there is a great demand for houses, and 
lets all the apartments at a certain rate. As soon as 
all are let, for the rent asked in a new house is not 
generally large, he sells it to another. The second man 
comes round to all the tenants, and with profuse apo- 
logies raises the rents all round. He talks of the great 
outlay he had made, the high price of the house, &c, 
and the tenants, sooner than be turned into the street 
when no other place can be had, calculating the ex- 
pense of moving their furniture, and the damage that 
every move entails, consent to pay the addition. The 
man instantly goes off and sells it to a third, pocketing 
of course a higher price than he had paid, because the 
house has risen in value, owing to his raising the rents. 
And so on till the patience of the tenants is exhausted. 

These are the landlords and the laws under which 
they nourish. But we have by no means got to the 



276 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



end of grievances when we have settled these two 
matters. The unpractical nature of the people, as 
shown in their building and fittings, is even more an- 
noying than their boorishness, as shown in their land- 
lords, and their helplessness, as shown in their laws. 
The chief point of distinction between the houses in 
Munich is their age, for the general run of houses seem 
to be built with much the same characteristics. De- 
scending to details, of course you may find a well-built 
house side by side with a badly-built one ; but the pro- 
bability is, that their rents will be the same, according 
to the situation and the number of rooms. In Munich, 
badness or goodness does not seem to influence rents, 
in fact good houses are often cheaper than bad ones. 
In the course of my rounds, before finding a lodging 
to suit me, I went into two houses not far from each 
other, and found one which was built with unusual con- 
veniences, was rented for £5 a year less than the other, 
which had one room less and an utter want of every 
comfort, even to bareness. These were houses built 
within six months of each other, but one was run up by 
a speculator to satisfy the demand. I trust there are 
not many such houses in Munich, and as my fate com- 
pelled me to live in one during the first six months of 
my stay, I can only pity those who find nothing else at 
their disposal. 

But, as I have just observed, the age of houses in 
Munich is their distinguishing mark, and the only 
means of classifying them. I take it that there are 
three periods of houses ; old houses dating from any 
time till King Lud wig's improvements ; houses built 



WATER-COLOURS, WHERE WATER IS WANTED. 277 

under King Ludwig, and houses built under the pre- 
sent King. Certainly these are divided into three dis- 
tinct styles. The old houses are those picturesque old 
German buildings which give their character to such 
towns as Nuremberg and Augsburg, and which appear 
in the water-colours of Prout, and of the many artists 
who spend their summers in sketching over the Con- 
tinent. We know those high roofs pierced with tiers 
upon tiers of gable windows, that fantastic ornamenta- 
tion of scrolls meandering round the projecting windows 
of the lower stories, the quaint, graceful irregularity of 
design that relieves the eye after modern uniformity. 
But no Englishman would care to live in one of these 
houses, however much he may be charmed by their out- 
sides, or by their interiors on the walls of the Water 
Colour Society. The Germans have not yet achieved 
any great triumphs in the art of building, and in earlier 
ages they could hardly be expected to supply the wants 
which they neglect even now. I have seen houses of 
great age in which the front rooms were really grand in 
their proportions, furnished with mirrors set in the 
walls, console tables below them, and marble mantel- 
pieces; but the practical arrangements at the back of 
the house were quite disproportioned to this splendour. 
Besides this, the old houses generally have a smell be- 
longing to them which dwells in all the passages, broods 
over the staircases, and even issues in solid columns out 
of the front door. Every house which has long been 
inhabited by Germans of the middle classes seems to 
gain this smell, which is partly the result of sauer 
kraut j but is still more owing to that neglect of Liebig's 



278 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



teaching, which was fully stated in one of the Registrar- 
General's reports. The mania for niching little rooms 
into impossible little corners, which is not yet extinct 
in German builders, naturally prevails in these old 
houses in the crowded part of the town. Where an 
English architect would gladly leave a little open space, 
a German thrusts in a closet without light or air, which 
is called a magd-kammer, and is considered enough for 
a servant to sleep in. I cannot conceive how a bed 
can be got in at all in many of the magd-kammers I 
have seen: I am sure the servant must stand on the 
bed to dress herself. And yet from the invariable 
custom of advertising an apartment of so many rooms 
with magd-kammer it is evident that these closets are 
used for servants. The offices are sadly neglected in 
old Munich, and the general result of an inquiry into 
certain parts of household arrangements is by no means 
satisfactory to English families. 

The houses dating from the time of King Ludwig 
are mostly very uniform, filling the streets which he 
laid out, and planned according to his taste. They are 
more or less Italian-looking outside, and are in general 
fairly comfortable within. I am speaking of the best 
houses, those in the Ludwig's Strasse, and the better 
streets that run off from it. The houses built under 
King Max are almost invariably of the modern French 
style, and while some are well built, and are perhaps 
the best residences in Munich, after the private houses 
of the nobility, others are hastily, carelessly, and cheaply 
run up. However, in all the houses in Munich, as in 
all branches of life, there is a want of the commonest 



WALLS AND SHUTTERS. 



279 



precautions to insure comfort, an amount of oversight 
which is really inexcusable. I doubt if in all Munich 
there is a piece of furniture that stands, or a floor that 
is level. The state of the walls generally is infamous, 
wherever a nail is driven in there is a run of sand or a 
shock against a stone, and wooden pegs have to be 
struck in before anything will hold. The annoyance 
caused by blinds and curtains is enough to wear out 
any master of a house, for servants never attempt to 
remedy the evil, and it is of almost daily recurrence. 
Some of the houses are destitute of the minor comforts 
that are supposed to form the chief merit of German 
dwellings ; draughts make their way through double 
windows unimpeded, and revel around the ill-closing 
doors. 

But the most serious evil, which dates from King 
Ludwig, is the outward uniformity of the streets., and 
the necessity of submitting your comfort to the caprices 
of high place. I do not know what grudge the autho- 
rities of Munich have against jalousies. Any one who 
has lived in a hot climate knows that they are indispen- 
sable to life, and every one who has seen their artistic 
effect in French and Italian towns will own that they 
are a most graceful ornament. But in Munich, though 
for four months the sun is as powerful as in the south, 
though the new streets have been built excessively wide, 
so that they may have the full benefit of the sun during 
winter, you may count the houses with outside shutters 
on your fingers. Even the new ones which are built in 
open imitation of Paris, do not possess the great conve- 
nience of Parisian houses. Nor is the intense glare of 



280 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the sun the only evil which would be avoided by shut- 
ters ; there is a greater scourge yet which alone should 
have suggested their adoption. Its exposed situation 
and the neighbourhood of the mountains lay Munich 
open to storms that are only known in mountain re- 
gions. The size of the hailstones which fall, and the 
violence with which they sweep the houses, are scarcely 
conceivable to those who have not witnessed such tem- 
pests. It was only the other day that a storm passed 
over Augsburg, levelling trees, destroying all the fruit 
and the harvest, and breaking every window on the 
exposed side of the chief street of the town. It is by 
no means uncommon for every window to be broken on 
one side of the Ludwig's Strasse when such storms pass 
over Munich, and such storms are no rare visitors. I 
have seen people throw their windows wide open and 
let the rain beat in, putting cloths to sop it up, sooner 
than have to pay a glazier's bill for every pane in their 
windows. 

The cost of putting up shutters would probably be 
less than that of having your windows broken every 
summer, and many people would long ago have put 
them up if the law did not interpose. But the law for- 
bids you to alter the outside of your house without per- 
mission, and if you live in certain streets without the 
most especial permission. Here is a gentle reminder 
on the part of the authorities, which I cut out of a paper 
in April, 1862. 

"WITH REGARD TO THE PAINTING OF HOUSES. 

"1. When the first coating has been laid on a house, 



POLICE REGULATIONS. 



281 



or the old one has been freshened up, pure white is not 
to be employed, but a mild, so-called stone colour which 
does not hurt the eyes. 

"2. It cannot, however, be permitted that two or 
more houses which form an architectonic whole should 
be painted differently. Nor is the colouring of the 
woodwork, of the window frames and shutters, of the 
house doors, &c, to have a different tint from the 
facade. 

3 

"3. If, therefore, the owner of such a house wishes 
to alter or to renew the painting of his facade, he must 
agree with the owners of the other houses as to the 
colour to be employed, and the time at which it shall 
take place. 

"4. If they cannot agree, any one may make an 
application, producing a pattern of the colour he 
wishes to employ, whereupon further steps will be taken. 

"5. For those houses near the old Schwabinger Gate, 
that is on the Odeon's Platz, in the Wittelsbacher Platz, 
the first and last houses in the Brienner Strasse, and 
those in the Lud wig's Strasse, the painting is submitted 

tO HIGHER APPROVAL. 

"6. The painting of the houses along the English 
Garden has to be submitted to the Intendant of the Hof 
Garten. 

" 7. A weekly report is to be made by the Master of 
the Works of all alterations in the painting of the 
houses. 

" 8. Whoever breaks these rules is liable to have a 
stop put to his proceedings, and to be punished by fine 
or arrest." 



282 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Uniformity is, therefore, the order of the day in 
Munich as well as in Paris, reminding us of the sol- 
dier's plan for laying out a city which M. About has 
given in Fougas. In Paris there is some excuse for 
monotony, for everything springs up at the will of one 
man and at fabulous speed. But in a town like Mu- 
nich, where the filling up of streets has to be entrusted 
to private builders, there is neither the same excuse nor 
the same necessity. The present King might have been 
warned by the spectacle of the Ludwig's Strasse not to 
lay out his Maximilian's Strasse with the same uni- 
formity. And yet we have the same design : 

" Grove nods at grove, each alley lias a brother, 
And half the platform just reflects the other." 

In truth, the new street is more faulty than the old. 
It is very prettily laid out with gardens and trees in 
front, and the houses standing back ; but the result is, 
that the pavement is of no use to the houses, and you 
have to wade through mud, or dismount in mud, if you 
would get to them. The houses are generally built 
without any carriage entrance, but they have exces- 
sively high sham double doors, about one-third of 
which is actually door, the rest being the wall of a room 
on the first storey. Besides which, having been run up 
by speculators, not often the most honest or the most 
enlightened of men, some of these houses have not one 
convenience, nothing but the bare walls. Some of them 
had no bells at the front door, and families inhabiting 
them were compelled to wait for half-an-hour in the 
snow till they could attract the attention of some one 



HOW RUSKIN IS STUDIED. 



283 



inside. In most other countries the last builder natu- 
rally adopts the existing conveniences, and endeavours 
to add more, that his house may be an improvement on 
earlier ones. But in Munich builders abandon the 
good that existed before, without substituting aught of 
their own. 

Perhaps the most remarkable point in Munich build- 
ing is, that house architects seem to have studied 
Ruskin in order to avoid his suggestions and to adopt 
what he condemns. Thus, all the railway stations in 
Bavaria are pretty, and the Munich station was embel- 
lished the other day with frescoes. I do not myself 
agree with Ruskin, in condemning pretty railway sta- 
tions, and it must be remembered that his premises do 
not apply in Bavaria. But every one will agree in his 
judgment against placing ornaments too high to be 
seen, as they have done in Munich with the bas-reliefs 
in the new National Museum. And all readers of the 
Edinburgh Lectures must join in the condemnation of 
the staring, goggle-eyed lion's heads which adorned 
some building, and with which Millais' spirited drawing 
of a tiger's head is so admirably contrasted. It was 
only the other day that I saw the newest house that is 
being built in Munich, and on its outside, at an 
enormous height from the ground — it contains seven 
storeys — were several lion's heads, which, so far as I 
could make them out, seemed literal copies of the sam- 
ples in the Edinburgh Lectures. 

It is generally asserted that German houses have a 
great advantage over English and French houses in cold 
weather, because the custom of putting up double win- 



284 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



dows prevails throughout Germany. A political philo- 
sopher observed that the only reason why Austria had 
so great an influence over Italy was, that Germany had 
a mission to teach the Italians the use of stoves and 
double windows, and that the war of 1859 was a just 
punishment to Austria for having been false to her 
mission. One need only pass a winter day in Venice to 
see the necessity of German appliances, and to feel the 
want of them ; but there is no need to compassionate 
the English as not possessing double windows. An 
English window is generally made to close tightly, and 
the glass is so much thicker and better fitted, that it 
serves the double purpose of keeping out draughts, and 
keeping the warmth in. The glass in Munich is so 
thin that it needs reinforcing in winter, and the win- 
dows close so badly, that but for the double windows 
and the moss between, the cold air would drive in by 
volumes. I was once witness in London to a scene of 
amateur burglary, a gentleman breaking into his own 
house. In Munich a slight tap would send almost any 
window in ; but in London the man had to kick with 
all his might against the sheet of glass for full two 
minutes, and the glass broke, and fell with a crash, like 
thick ice flung heavily on the pavement. 

But if the Munich glass is thin and light, compared 
with the glass of London windows, it must be admitted 
that in another point Munich studies to provide heavi- 
ness and solidity, where London aims at lightness and 
elegance. I need hardly say that I allude to door-keys. 
u Latch-key 99 would be inappropriate to describe the 
German article, and the possession of one ceases to be 



HOW A PRIVILEGE BECOMES A CURSE. 285 



a privilege, coveted and obtained by exemplary conduct, 
but becomes a duty, a heavy duty. If you could take 
the aspiring youth who looks forward to the attainment 
of a latch-key, with the trembling hope, " a tip-toe for 
the blessing of embrace," with which poets invest 
young lovers, and show him German middle age groan- 
ing under the weight of its key, you would achieve a 
warning worthy to be ranked with that famous one 
against finery uttered by the Turk. " My son, if ever 
you forget God and the Prophet, you may come to 
look like that!" pointing to a dapper French dandy. 
It is no exaggeration to say that the German door-key 
as a weapon of defence, would be effectual against ga- 
rotters, and that, armed with it, the worst districts of 
London might safely be traversed. But in peaceful 
Munich you cannot carry such a murderous implement 
in your hand without fear of being arrested, or without 
the danger of terrifying the whole population. And 
no pockets that can be made are capacious enough to 
contain the key, or hardy enough to endure under its 
weight. A series of amusing pictures appeared in the 
Fliegende Blatter, the comic paper of Munich, illus- 
trating this topic. A man was represented going off 
with his key sticking a yard out of the flap pocket of 
his coat ; he shuts the door hastily, and key and coat- 
tail are shut in, the key standing out immense and 
cumbrous within the door, as large as the man on the 
other side. But even this one great key is not the only 
burden imposed on the householders of Munich. Each 
house has an outer door, which also boasts a key, and, 
as by police regulation the outer door must be shut 



286 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



every night at nine, if you stay out beyond that hour, 
you must carry two keys in your pocket. Fancy the 
horror of a stranger at some convivial meeting, hearing 
at each movement of his neighbours an ominous clank- 
ing of iron on iron ! Would he not fancy that he was 
in an assembly of escaped convicts, dragging about the 
remnants of their chains; or of ticket-of- leave men, 
whom a sensible government had rendered harmless, as 
their nature was thus publicly affiche? 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



VILLAGE LIFE IN BAVARIA. 

Entering on foreign travel, the first thing that strikes 
you as a pleasant contrast to England, is the gaiety and 
brightness of continental towns. Returning to Eng- 
land, the first thing that strikes you is the beauty of 
the country. It is not pleasant to enter London at the 
east, passing over countless roofs of houses, all grimy 
and bleak, under the fog that serves them for climate, 
looking down on gloomy streets of drear uniformity, 
with only the gold letters of public-house boards to 
relieve it, when you have just left the sunny Boulevards, 
and the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne. But how 
cheering it is to be whirled through the rich meadows 
of Kent, with their neat hedges and green stretches of 
sward, the lazy kine pausing as you fly past them, and 
honouring you with a philosophic look, after the wide 
plains of the Continent, the puzzling strips and patches 
of culture, and ever-recurring sameness of trees. An 
Englishman, too apt to be vain of his nationality, would 
claim a greater merit for the pre-eminence of England 
by quoting Cowper : " God made the country, and man 
made the town/' as he is given to quoting a line of 



290 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



and disobliging, and being mostly in easy circumstances, 
can afford to follow their instincts. A village carpenter 
will tell you that because you gave a piece of work to 
another man you may have everything else you want 
done by him. An inn-keeper will tell you that unless 
you buy all your meat from him you need not ask him 
to sell you any. Peasants will ask you town prices for 
the products of the country, and reply to your com- 
plaints with a defiance of logic that almost amounts to 
depravity. And as you are in all things at their 
mercy, as the inn-keeper has a monopoly of almost 
everything you want, there is no chance of rebelling. 
One would almost be tempted to paint the whole tribe 
of peasants in the blackest colours, when one thinks of 
the many cases of insolence and arrogance one has 
seen or heard of; but this would be to sacrifice truth 
to clearness, and to forget the rule of mixed motives, 
which must be observed by every faithful delineator of 
character. I fancy the hearts of most of these people 
are in the right places, although the avenues leading to 
them are choked up by obnoxious weeds. One trait I 
have noticed which is exceedingly singular. Some of 
the peasants will go a great deal out of their way to 
oblige you when nothing is to be gained by it, while 
others will not even stir a step for you when it is a 
question of money. In other words, some will do a 
kindness for nothing, while others will not do their duty 
for money. An inn-keeper who had let a room to a 
stranger would not get up at night to let him in ; but a 
woman who had walked nine miles that day went all 
about the house till she found out the waitress, and got 



THE LIFE OF COWS. 



291 



the door opened. And this was pure civility, without 
hope of reward, or connexion with the inn. Another 
time two women gave up half-an-hour to assist an 
English lady in finding her way home after a storm, 
wading up to their knees in search of a dry path for 
her, and refused to take any reward. I do not know 
if these are merely exceptional cases, or if the women 
generally are better than the men. In driving bargains 
the women are certainly not more generous than the 
men. In many countries a peasant will bring out some- 
thing of his store and make a present of it, thinking 
himself amply requited by the honour you have done 
him in entering his house. But in a Bavarian village a 
rich farmer's wife brings out a dozen dried up pears 
and asks if you would like to buy them. A party of 
children stop at a farm and ask for a glass of milk. 
The woman grunts out question after question, " if they 
will not take a quart ?" and only serves them on their 
taking a quart, for which she charges them the town 
price. These were not poor people; the one owned 
wardrobes full of linen, and the other had ten or twelve 
cows in her stable. 

An English girl fresh from the country thought the 
strangest thing on the Continent was that she never 
saw any cows in the fields. In Bavaria they are kept 
up the whole summer, and only turned out in October. 
Then they are herded, as all things, even geese, are 
herded on the Continent, and the continual cracking of 
whips kept up by the boys who watch them, is enough 
to distract them from eating their fill. Milk and butter 
suffer for the want of fresh air and unceasing mastica- 



292 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



tion. In the stable the cows are fed only twice a day 
on grass, with an addition of swill as a midday meal. 
Some people keep their stables clean, and give a little 
more food ; but I have seen stables in which the cows 
seemed to be littered on filth, and the whole floor was 
floating with it. The stables almost invariably form 
the hinder end of the house, and above the stable is the 
hay loft. This explains the great length of all Bava- 
rian peasants' houses and their division in two, the fore 
part being of stone and plastered, the hinder part of 
wood with jalousies. Where the stable is left as dirty 
as that I have described, the house is impregnated with 
the smell, for only a door separates the house from the 
stable. But when the stable is clean, with the fragrance 
of the hay acting as a purifier, no ill effects are found, 
and you might live less agreeably in the neighbourhood 
of men than you do with the cows so close to you. The 
great houses of landed proprietors have also farm-houses 
attached to them as a rule, and, unless the farm is let 
out, it adds greatly to the trouble of an estate. 

The chief produce of these small farms is a kind of 
lard called schmalz, which is made by boiling down 
butter, and which enters largely into all country cook- 
ing. In winter the peasants will not sell either milk or 
butter, as they use up all their produce in making 
schmalz, and even in summer, when the town people 
are living in the country, the peasants revolt against 
supplying them. I am not myself versed in farm 
economy, but I fancy this mode of applying butter is 
not the most profitable. The quantity of schmalz used 
by the peasants is inordinate, especially on feast-days ; 



FOOD OF THE PEASANTS. 



293 



and it seems to be valued as the breath of their nostrils. 
Their food consists chiefly of things cooked in it, for 
they eat little meat, alleging that they could not work 
on meat as well as on balls of flour cooked in lard. 
These balls of flour are the national food of Bavaria, 
and are susceptible of many varieties. The generic 
name of them is nudel, but six or eight qualifying 
adjectives are applied to them. The nude I pure is made 
of flour and yeast with eggs and milk, and is fried in 
schmah; another kind is made with curds, and is called 
curd nudel; a still richer kind is made at the great 
village festival which takes place every year, and is called 
kirchweih nudel, from the name of the festival ; while a 
fourth kind, better still, is made in Munich, and, under 
the name of steam nudel, attains to the dignity of a 
pudding. Of course the plainest kind is most eaten by 
the peasants, the better kinds being reserved for Sun- 
days and great feast days. 

The only feast-day that is kept in most of these vil- 
lages is the annually recurring kirchweih, the anniver- 
sary of the dedication of the village church. This day 
is almost invariably in summer, when the light lasts 
long enough for plenty of dancing and feasting, and 
when all relations can come from far and near to be 
present at the family rejoicing. Inclement weather and 
bad roads interfere with any such meetings at Christmas 
and the New Year ; moreover, the shortness of the days 
would entail an expense of candles that cannot be con- 
templated. Kirchweih has thus to replace all other 
festivals, and the peasants take care that it replaces 
them amply. All the houses in the village entertain, 



294 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



and eating goes on from morning till night. Not only- 
are piles of kirchiveih nudels cooked, and pans of schmalz 
kept bubbling continually, but even meat is bought and 
put before the guests, and beer is generally got down 
from Munich, or from some reliable tap. When it is 
fine, the open space before the door of each house is 
used for sitting out and dancing; a patch of grass is 
mowed close and smooth, or gravel and stones are swept 
off the ground. Some sit on the bench under the bal- 
cony looking on while the couples dance to rude music ; 
close by the fountain keeps up its trickling from the 
wooden spout into the oblong trough, the invariable 
accompaniments of all village houses. All the neigh- 
bours round pay visits at this season, and the same hos- 
pitality is shown to all. Of course everybody wears best 
clothes, so that the time is favourable for observing 
costumes. After church time you see the roads and 
fields dotted with men and women in gay colours and 
quaint dresses. All the men wear long coats going down 
to the ground, and adorned with white metal buttons. 
These coats are never left off even in the heat of 
summer, though they are cumbrous enough; you see 
peasants very often with long cloth cloaks when you are 
perspiring in brown holland. The white metal buttons 
are sometimes silver coins stitched on, so that a man 
may carry his wealth about him. The married women 
wear black hats made of otter's fur, in shape like a muff 
sewed up at one end ; the body of their dress is mostly 
black silk, with a handkerchief over their shoulders, 
and an apron. Apron and handkerchief relieve the black 
silk with their gaudy colours ; at one feast I saw two 



VILLAGE DANCING. 



295 



women, one with a bright crimson, the other a bright 
light-blue apron, like living pieces of colour under a 
brilliant flood of sunlight. Unmarried women have 
Vandyke hats with twisted gold cords, more pic- 
turesque, though not so quaint as the fur caps with 
which the elders emulate the military bear-skin. 

Besides these private festivities, the inn is largely fre- 
quented. A band is kept there during Kirchweih, and 
dancing goes on most of the day. The Bavarian na- 
tional dances are highly eccentric, and often attract 
strangers to witness them. The waltz is the foundation 
on which they are built ; but ornaments and variations 
are superadded, like fioriture on airs, till the original 
dance succumbs under the weight of accessories. The 
men revolve in the centre of a ring, the outside edge of 
which is composed of the women dancing round alone, 
and keep time with slapping of their thighs, frequently 
hopping at the same time ; not to mention whooping 
and whistling, pardonable eccentricities under so much 
excitement. Each dance is ended with a stamp that 
makes the floor shake ; a proceeding that is sometimes 
adopted in more polished circles. Weddings are cele- 
brated by similar scenes, and are held in the village inn 
from morning till evening, with a slight interval for the 
religious ceremony. But the wedding guests are not 
entertained at the expense of the bride's father; they 
are expected to pay their share of the entertainment, 
and the chief costs of the music and food are defrayed 
by their contributions. Many peasants absent them- 
selves from marriages on this account : and at a mar- 
riage which took place during my stay in the country, 



296 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



some made the excuse that neither bride nor bridegroom 
had been long natives of the village. But the ceremony 
in the church was generally attended, even by those 
who held aloof from the feasting. Before the bridal 
procession came, the church was being prepared with 
unusual importance. Two violins and a chorus climbed 
up into the organ-loft. The sacristan went about get- 
ting things in order, and spectators took their places in 
the gallery, or waited outside for the procession. When 
the bridal train had entered, the best man brought in a 
basket with two bottles of wine, and gave it to the 
sacristan. First came the marriage service, the priest 
binding together the hands of the man and woman with 
two lappets that hung from his shoulders. After this 
came the mass, with full orchestral accompaniment. 
The parish priest seemed scarcely accustomed to so 
grand a service, and decidedly puzzled by the require- 
ments of Gregorian intonation. But he was resolved 
to shirk no part of his duty. Having to sing certain 
words to certain notes, he fulfilled the double task by 
pronouncing the words first, with an amount of quaver- 
ing that was really unique, and then huddling in all 
the notes by themselves. The orchestral effect was 
creditable, so long as instruments and singers kept toge- 
ther ; but every now and then an ambitious voice would 
break forth into a solo, and the solo would generally 
end in a squeak, which had to be drowned by vigorous 
ensemble. When the mass was over, the sacristan 
brought out the two bottles of wine, and the priest 
stood at one side of the altar, with a glass in his hand. 
A plate was put on each side of the altar, and another 



JACK OF ALL TRADES, AND MASTER OF NONE. 297 

at the beginning of the chancel. Then the wedding 
party passed round behind the altar in rotation, each 
putting a piece of money in every one of the plates, 
and drinking some of the wine, the priest holding the 
glass to their lips. The bridegroom drank first, then 
the bride, then the men, and then the women. Having 
to make offerings in so many plates, each one took out 
change from the first, and afterwards bride and bride- 
groom gave away copper pieces to the girls and boys of 
the village. 

The inn where all these rejoicings are held, is a large 
straggling building, with bare blank walls, and many 
small windows outside, and low ceilings, which have a 
gloomy and heavy effect within. The innkeeper has a 
monopoly of all the food of the neighbourhood ; he is 
butcher and baker himself, besides owning a flour mill, 
and is at once independent of the peasants, and lord of 
the village. If he does not choose to bake, you must 
go without bread ; if he will not kill, you must put up 
with any bits of meat you can find, and when he does 
kill, you must take what he gives you. This necessity 
of subordination matters little to the peasants, who 
bake their own bread when they have got their wheat 
in, and only eat meat on Sundays. But towns-people, 
who are passing the summer in the domain of a des- 
potic innkeeper, are much dissatisfied with his rule. 
One cannot understand the principle on which inn- 
keepers and farmers in the country refuse to earn money. 
Whenever you want anything done, you are told that it 
will pay them better not to do it, and they always 
find that they can earn more florins by their own 

o 2 



298 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



little peddling jobs, than by pocketing a good round 
sum for your service. But the natural result of their 
conduct is that strangers avoid this part of the country, 
or pay more to other people to have their commissions 
executed. Any way the money they would not earn 
goes away from them, and the time must come when 
they will feel their error. An innkeeper who locks out 
his guests, and will not get up at ten at night (eight 
being his hour of going to bed) to let them in, can 
hardly count on their coming back to him ; and yet it 
must be important to an innkeeper at some period of 
his career to be able to count on it. Now that the inn 
has only one guest-chamber it may seem immaterial ; but 
is it to be always as it is now? If one man does not suit 
travellers, another may be found to build an opposition 
house, which might prove the ruin of the original mono- 
polist. Herr Steub, a Munich writer on the Bavarian 
highlands, reports that he advised the mistress of a 
small inn to build another with twenty-five rooms, to. 
accommodate the crowd of strangers visiting the place. 
Her answer contained the pith of the Bavarian hotel 
system. She shrugged her shoulders, and expressed 
the most complete indifference to people who came in 
the evening, called at once for a bath and a barber, and 
wanted roast fowl at three in the morning. It requires 
a vivid imagination to draw this picture of guests call- 
ing for a bath or a roast fowl in a Bavarian village inn, 
even if thev asked for them at three in the afternoon. 
They would, no doubt, be told, that all the hens were 
wanted for laying eggs, and for a bath would be sent to 
wash at the pump, as the village washes itself. 



VILLAGE HOUSES. 



299 



The guest-chamber in the inn that I am describing 
was a large long low room, with four beds, and a heavy- 
old-fashioned wardrobe, full of the Wirthin's best 
clothes. It has a counterpart in all the better houses 
in the village. In all these houses the smallness of the 
windows strikes you uncomfortably from without, and 
within the lowness of the ceilings adds to the effect of 
the small windows. One would suppose there was a 
heavy window-tax levied according to size, or that the 
ceiling served to keep the young men below the mili- 
tary standard of height. In front of the house the 
inseparable fountain is running, and on the door is some 
such inscription as this in rude rhymes : — 

" The love of G-od rest on this house ! 
Bring me no tattle in, and take none out, — 
So may the love of Grod rest on this house." 

On a tree-top, close to the side of the house, a scythe 
is stuck up, and glitters in the sunlight, to attract the 
hawks by its sheen as they soar by, and entice them to 
swoop down and transfix themselves on it. The kitchen 
is generally primitive ; a flat open space of brick serves 
for hearth, and pots are suspended over a fire of sticks 
in the gipsy fashion. The best room is seldom or never 
used by the family. It is generally a repository for the 
household stores of linen and flax ; the trousseau is put 
away in great wardrobes, and never touched. In some 
houses are piles of linen which were given at marriage, 
and will be kept sacred till death. The wedding clothes 
are also cherished up in these wardrobes, and in glass 



300 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



cases round the room are the little wax nicknacks, of 
which the peasants are so fond, with perhaps a pair of 
fancy garters which it would be a profanation to wear. 
The hesitation of Isaac of York, before putting the 
last gold piece in the bag, was once equalled by an old 
woman in the village wavering between two of her wax 
treasures. A present had been given her, and she felt 
that she ought to make some return : but she could not 
make up her mind which she should give of two little 
nicknacks, and at last she put them both back in their 
places. 

A singular feature in Bavarian village life is the ab- 
sence of family names, the substitution either of nick- 
names or of professional names, which may be noticed 
in Auerbach's Barfiissele. In Auerbach's village not 
one surname occurs ; the farmers have the nearest ap- 
proach to a surname when they are not called from any 
of their belongings ; some people have nicknames, and 
some only adjectives attached to their Christian names. 
The same is the case in Bavarian villages. A farmer 
sometimes has his name given him so far as this, that 
he is called the Stoffelbauer if his name be Stoffel, as if 
a farmer named Smith were called the Smith-farmer. 
But generally the occupation gives the name. There is 
the Forester, the Groove-cutter, the Blue Miller, the 
Innkeeper's Miller, the Saw Miller, the Miller by the 
Stream. Not one of these seems to have a surname 
belonging to him; they are all known through the 
country by their professions. In some cases the name 
goes with the house ; as a man and wife are called the 
saddler and saddleress, because the house they live in 



A VILLAGE BURIAL. 



301 



was formerly occupied by a saddler. Another peasant 
is called Neuhauser, " of the new house/' because the 
house he inhabits was once new, though now it is old. 

An event which very much stirred the village during 
my stay was the death of the innkeeper's wife. Every 
one said it was a pity she died, as she had brought six- 
teen thousand florins into the house; every one con- 
doled with the innkeeper, as she had done all the work ; 
and every one said it was very hard that she should die 
on the day of kirchweih, so that there could be no 
dancing or music at the inn on the only day in the year 
on which they were wanted. Like George the Second, 
the innkeeper announced before his wife's death that he 
would not marry again, but would retire from the busi- 
ness and invest the sum realized by selling it for the 
benefit of the children. But a short time after her 
death he was looking out for a working wife, and re- 
fused the daughter of another innkeeper with forty 
thousand florins, because she would be too much of a 
lady. The burial of the wife was attended by about 
two hundred people from all the country round, and 
mass said for her a week after by a hundred, who were 
fed by the inkeeper as at a wedding, or kirchiveih, save 
that he had to bear the expense. He had to bake 
quantities of bread and distribute it in the church to 
all who were present. There is an old story of a frugal 
couple of aged people who took it into their heads that 
they were going to die, and were alarmed at the costs of 
the funeral. After they had reckoned up everything, 
and were in despair at the expense attendant on paying 
the debt of nature, the old man suddenly found a gleam 



302 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



of hope. " After all, my dear/' he said, " perhaps we 
may not die this time." "I hope not/' replied the 
wife, " for I am sure we can't afford it." The story is 
exceedingly applicable to the Wirthin's burial. Not 
only were these multitudes fed, but the dead was laid 
out with the most wanton extravagance. They sent up 
to Munich and had a new dress of black satin made for 
her, and a collar and cap of blonde lace, in which she 
was to be buried. During her life she would never 
have dreamt of wearing such things as these that she 
was to take into the grave. The dying thoughts of 
Pope's Narcissa are more excusable than the idea of 
decking a plain working woman with such finery in 
order to lay her in the earth, like the miser who 
intended to take his money with him. But in justice 
to the village it must be said, that the custom which 
prevails in Munich is far more reprehensible. 



CHAPTER XIX, 



LAWS OF TRADE. 



I have abused the tradesmen of Munich, but their 
faults are not entirely their own. If I have dwelt 
too much upon the inconvenience arising from those 
faults, it is not without full willingness to admit that 
there is one palliation of them. With the regulations 
that still exist, the guilds and corporations, the restric- 
tions on every side, a more intelligent body of trades- 
men could hardly have existed. Such a premium is 
placed on dulness that ability is driven out of the 
market. Indeed it is singular to trace the effect of the 
paternal system adopted by German Governments on 
the national prosperity. Why is it that Germans in 
America thrive to an extent unknown in their native 
country? Why is it that Paris and London take the 
most intelligent workers away from Germany, and that 
the labour of Germans in those two capitals is so 
different from any that you can command in their own 
cities? Because the German Governments put every 
impediment in the way of their people. Because there 
is neither proper instruction, nor proper energy; no 
encouragement of the best workmen, no reward for 



394 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH . 



merit, And of all places in Germany, Munich is pro- 
bably the head-quarters of this backwardness, the city 
where work is most inefficient, and restriction the most 
galling, where the least is done to aid activity, and the 
most is done to retard it. 

The ancient system of guilds, which seems to have 
prevailed generally in the beginnings of commercial 
life, has subsisted, with very slight modifications, in 
Germany down to the present time. Absolute freedom 
of trade, the right of every man to earn his bread 
according to his capacity, has only lately been intro- 
duced. Before 1859 it existed only in Prussia and in 
the Rhine provinces of Bavaria, besides some smaller 
places, while even in Prussia its workings were some- 
what impeded. Austria adopted it at the end of 1859, 
and her example was speedily followed by many of the 
smaller states, Nassau, Saxony, Baden, and Wurtem- 
berg. The only states which resist it still are Hanover, 
the two Hesses, and Bavaria. In 1861 an attempt was 
made in the Bavarian Chambers to have freedom of 
trade introduced, but the only result was a certain 
relaxation of the existing laws. These laws had come 
in course of time to form a compromise between the 
wants of the people and the antiquated system on which 
the existence of trade was based. The guilds arose origi- 
nally, says a pamphleteer in his historical sketch of the 
Bavarian system, by the union of tradesmen in the 
towns, and, as in the middle ages all towns were exclu- 
sive, the trade guilds became exclusive as a necessary 
consequence. In 1616 the strictness of the guilds was 
somewhat relaxed, and in 1731 an Imperial decree 



HISTORY OF TRADE LAWS. 



305 



formed the law of handicraft. At the beginning of the 
present century the influence of the French Revolution 
and of Adam Smith had some operation. Formerly no 
one might exercise more than one trade, or sell any- 
thing he had not made himself; each permission was 
purely personal, and could not be inherited, being, 
moreover, often attached to the house in which it was 
exercised, and expiring if the house was pulled down. 
In 1804 the power of inheriting real rights was granted, 
and in 1807 several relaxations were made, although 
instantly withdrawn owing to the rush of competitors 
that ensued. In 1825 a great reform was introduced 
with a view to bring about total freedom in the course 
of time. But the reform was so much attacked in the 
next years that a reaction took place, a measure was 
brought into the Chambers to restrict the workings of 
the former law. The Chambers, however, modified the 
reactionary measure laid before them, the King refused 
to pass it with their amendments, and, on their disso- 
lution, issued an instruction to his ministers to protect 
the interests of trade and of the trades-unions which 
had now succeeded to the guilds. A similar order was 
issued in 1853, and the effect of both was to throw 
back the development of trade. The relaxation effected 
in 1861 only amounted to a return to the law of 1825 
from the two instructions of 1834 and 1853, that is, 
to an acknowledgement that the right path had been 
chosen thirty-six years before, had been blocked up by 
subsequent efforts, and must now be sought out again. 

The mass of notes, pamphlets, newspaper cuttings, 
proceedings in the chambers, debates, committees, 



306 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



through which I have waded before writing this chap- 
ter, may probably have a puzzling effect upon me, and 
may deter the reader from entering into the subject. 
It is difficult for an Englishman to appreciate the mass 
of orders and instructions which are necessary in Ger- 
many to excuse or explain any step of the Government, 
and the quantity of details that overload state papers 
is positively repugnant to us. Where can be the good 
of defining, with legal precision, what are the different 
steps on the ladder of trade; which members of the 
body may carry on their business without special leave, 
which may be exempted from examination? "Why 
must the State take care that none enters into trade 
who is not fit for it, that all the business houses in its 
dominion have sufficient capital, and run no risk of 
bankruptcy? Surely things can go on in their own 
course without all this supervision. Surely it is not 
necessary for Government to poke its nose into all pri- 
vate concerns, to have magistrates, and police, and com- 
mon councils, and commercial councils, and overseers of 
the poor, to control the affairs of the citizens, and to 
protect what is in no need of protection. If Germans 
are really such babies that they cannot rely on them- 
selves for such matters, how comes it that their colonies 
flourish ? And if there is a want of employment, and 
so many idle hands that tasks must be found for them 
by the State, would it not be more profitable to advance 
the general interest than to obstruct it ? Some work 
might be found which would be useful to the commu- 
nity. Or if not, better pay people to do nothing than 
to impede others. This is so obvious to English minds, 



A SKETCH OF THE SYSTEM. 



307 



that I must ask pardon for dwelling on it. But it 
seems only known to the higher thinkers in Germany, 
and it finds antagonists even among those who might 
be credited with practical intelligence. In the debate 
on freedom of trade in the Bavarian Chambers, the 
opponents of the measure were not those only who 
benefited by monopoly, nor is it rare to find the old 
system of restrictions defended by men of education. 

Let me briefly sketch the system of trade as it existed 
till July, 1862, when the relaxations authorised by the 
Chambers in the preceding year came into effect. The 
principle on which the old laws were based was that of 
complete supervision. No one, so far as I can ascer- 
tain, was allowed to carry on any occupation without 
permission. On the great majority of trades, appren- 
ticeship, journey manship, travelling, and examinations 
were imposed ; the time of each being regulated, and 
numerous details added to ensure their efficacy. Hav- 
ing passed through all these grades with a good cha- 
racter, the beginner was at liberty to apply for a con- 
cession to carry on his trade. So far there does not 
seem to be any great hardship. It is a law of nature, 
that any one who would succeed in anything must learn 
it first, and the course of study prescribed by a man's 
own conscience is often far severer than any course 
prescribed him from without. It is surely well in the 
abstract, that the learner in trade should have a prac- 
tical teacher, should serve a short time after he has been 
taught under a competent and experienced master, 
should travel to learn the ways and cities of many men 
of business, and should give some guarantee to the 



308 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



public by passing an examination. If anything can 
secure good work, one would think this system would, 
especially when it is added that a power is provided to 
punish incompetent workmen. But unfortunately na- 
ture resents this encroachment on her province. She 
replies that she has herself provided rewards and pun- 
ishments amply sufficient, that if a man will not learn 
his trade he is punished by want of employment, that 
an examination far severer than any prescribed by 
Government must be passed before the public, and that 
while the protective system is liable to constant evasion 
her system is infallible in the end. And thus, as the 
admirable means appointed for making all English gen- 
tlemen finished classical scholars is found to fail of its 
end, so the means for making Bavarian trade the best 
of all trades, has had an opposite effect. The failure is 
sufficiently explained when we examine the regulations 
in detail. In the first place, the teaching and examina- 
tions are prescribed only for the simple branches of 
trade, not for the more difficult. Such trades as the 
making mathematical, physical, optical, or hydraulic in- 
struments, engraving, preparing cosmetics or perfumes, 
making artificial flowers, chocolate, mineral or metallic 
colours, are exempted. A woman may make ladies' 
dresses without any permission being needed, but a man 
may not. Artists' brushes may be made freely, but the 
brushes for house-painters cannot be made without re- 
gular education. 

The relations of the pupil to his teacher are strictly 
defined. The pupil must give the teacher that tribe of 
certificates which Germans consider indispensable, cer- 



YEARS OF TRAVEL. 



309 



tificate of his birth, of his vaccination, of the character 
he bears in his parish, and of his having completed his 
time of schooling. The teacher is bound to instruct 
the pupil in his trade, make him attend school on 
Sundays and feast-days, and accustom him to a moral 
course of life, employing, if necessary, 'discipline to him, 
and has to give a certificate of his conduct every year. 
The time of pupilage varies from three to five years, 
and at the end of that time a certificate of moral and 
religious conduct has to be produced by the pupil; he 
has to pass an examination, and prepare a sample of 
his workmanship. After this he becomes a journey- 
man for five years, part of which must be spent in 
travel. The rules of wanderschaft have become relaxed, 
says one writer ; journeymen are no longer sent from 
one place to another at the caprice of the police official 
who visas their passports, nor are they subjected to 
countless brutalities and vexatious regulations ; they 
may travel like other men, and employ their time in 
learning their trade, as best becomes them. Still they 
are not entirely free. They may only visit such states 
as are entered in their passport, and they are expressly 
forbidden to go into Switzerland or into Bremen. To 
become a master, a new certificate of character and 
attendance at school must be produced, and another 
examination passed. Such is the course through which 
the bulk of trades-people must pass. All must pass 
alike, the clever one must learn as long as the stupid, 
and a good worker may be deprived of his bread if he 
does not attend the Sunday school, or cannot accom- 
modate himself to his master's disposition. To keep 



310 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



up the system of private tuition, youths are forbidden 
to pass their time of apprenticeship in a manufactory, 
although perhaps the teacher makes nothing himself, 
finding it more profitable to retail goods supplied from 
some manufactory. 

Supposing, however, a man to have gained his meister- 
recht, the freedom of his company. The mere fact of 
having gained it by no means qualifies him for in- 
dependent exercise of his business. He must first of 
all apply for a concession. Concessions are to be given 
for capacity and good character, by priority of applica- 
tion. So far as capacity can be tested by examinations 
no doubt it is tested, but the good conduct clause is 
entirely futile. It merely serves to give the police an 
entire control over the trading population ; the slightest 
black mark during the years of apprenticeship vitiates 
the whole time of good character, and as concessions 
may at any time be withdrawn on account of dis- 
obedience to the authorities, a man's life is not safe if 
he expresses his opinions. One writer tells of a shoe- 
maker who applied for thirty years for a concession, 
and adds, that ten years is no infrequent period. The 
question of marriage is so closely mixed up in the trade 
question that the obstacles are doubled, and the question 
of marriage I must postpone to a separate chapter. But 
the process to be gone through generally comprises both 
applications, and the process is thus sketched by a 
journalist of unusual clearness and ability : — f ' A journey- 
man tailor applies for the right of practising as a master. 
He procures the whole apparatus of certificates needed, 
— birth, vaccination, school, examination, &c. &c. With 



APPLYING FOR A CONCESSION. 



311 



these lie betakes himself to the office, and sets the official 
on duty at work to register his application. The ap- 
plication is posted up publicly, and invites all the other 
journeymen tailors in the town to offer themselves as 
competitors. However helpless their chance may be, 
they cannot help competing, for in granting concessions 
a preference is always given to the oldest applicant, 
which puts a premium on entering the lists early. The 
applications of these competitors are also registered ; on 
this the whole ranks of the guild are put in motion to 
state by protocol to the court, and with full convincing- 
proofs, that the trade is overburdened with masters, 
and that therefore the applications must be dismissed. 
This protest causes reference to the council of trade; 
the council of trade meets, deliberates, and delivers its 
judgment. If, as is generally the case, the application 
for a concession is made in conjunction with one for 
settling down and marrying, it must also be referred to 
two other boards, the common council and the overseers 
of the poor, who have a report brought in, deliberate on 
it, and deliver their judgment to the magistrate. On 
this follows an examination of the papers, the reporter 
of the court draws up his report, the court deliberates 
and resolves, the determination is communicated to the 
parties concerned by protocol, and the expenses are 
collected. As the great majority of those who apply 
for concessions are met with a refusal, there is no lack 
of appeals to the higher powers. In the years 1859-60 
one hundred and sixty-five appeals were made against 
the decision of the Munich magistrates. On this the 
second part of the machinery is set in motion. An 



312 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



advocate is employed to examine the deeds, and draw 
up an appeal, which is forwarded to the tipper court, 
with a statement from the magistrate. An official of 
the district looks through the papers, and makes a 
report to the board. The board deliberates and de- 
termines, draws up its resolution, and communicates 
it through the magistrate to the appellant. The fees 
and legal expenses are collected, and the curtain falls 
a second time. Complaints on the score of nullity, 
and appeals to the ministry, are a common afterpiece. 
And what is the result of this endless, yearly recurring 
consumption of labour, time, and money? That one 
hundred men are confirmed by law in the possession of 
a right with which they were born, and another hundred 
are by law deprived of that right. Individuals have 
frequently to suffer inconvenience for the general good, 
but what good does society gain from these individual 
sacrifices ? Does the general good consist in securing a 
comfortable existence to some privileged masters by 
legal restriction and suppression of concurrence, in 
blunting the strongest incitements to industry, in driv- 
ing the best workers to freer countries, in causing the 
consuming public to be served worse, slower, and dearer? 
Only one branch of production has reached great ac- 
tivity under the prevailing system, that is the produc- 
tion of illegitimate children; and only one branch of 
industry, the marriage of the widows of masters with 
young apprentices. A loss to the public is caused by 
the system ; it is not that individuals are sacrificed t 
the general good, but the general good is sacrificed to 
some privileged individuals." 



VEXATIOUS OPPOSITION. 



313 



There is no exaggeration in this statement. One has 
only to observe the reports of the magistrate's sittings 
to find cases which substantiate it. In one report I find 
twenty-eight applicants for concessions as tailors, the 
eldest having served 34 years, two others 28 years, one 
27, two 24, four 21, and three 20. In almost every 
session of the magistrates a number of permissions are 
refused; none have been vacated, or there does not 
seem a call for any more. So accustomed was every 
one to the old order of things, that after the new regu- 
lation came in force, nine concessions to bakers and six 
to saddlers were granted on the same day, to the uni- 
versal astonishment of the town, and of eighty-two shoe- 
makers who applied, twenty were allowed to practise. 
The numbers may seem great in a small town like 
Munich, but the testimony they bear to the long exist- 
ence of the coercive system is still more remarkable. 

Nor are the troubles over when the concession is 
granted. Restrictions are always coming in the way, 
and any extension of business, or removal from one 
town to another, must be obtained with as much diffi- 
culty as the original permission. All the idle and in- 
competent masters in every trade, the monopolists, and 
the busy-bodies are on the watch for any infringement 
of their privileges, and their time is passed in protesting 
and complaining instead of improving their business. 
Any report of the magistrates' sittings may be referred 
to for instances of vexatious opposition. In one, several 
master tailors are warned because they have cloth not 
made up in their shops, while their concession only 
allows them to have made-up goods. A second-hand 

p 



314 SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 

bookseller wishing to remove his business from Bay- 
reuth to Munich meets with protests from the Common 
Council, the overseers of the poor, the Board of Trade, 
and the Booksellers' Guild ; but on appeal to the Go- 
vernment, his application is granted, because there has 
been no augmentation of that branch of trade since 
1834. The police recommend that a hundred more 
cabs be brought into the town, the livery stables pro- 
test, and the existing number of cabs is increased by 
forty-eight only. The police authorities also desired to 
have one-horse cabs with four seats, as there are in all the 
chief capitals of Europe, but the Society for the Protec- 
tion of Animals protests, and the project is abandoned. 
The Guild of Shoemakers complain that the salt- 
pounders wear shoes made of old patches, and the ma- 
gistrate forbade the salt-pounders to wear them any 
more ; but the salt-pounders appeal to Government, and 
gain a victory over the shoemakers. Two men appeal 
to Government for permission to exercise a clothseller's 
privilege in common, the magistrate having refused his 
consent. The Government reverses the magistrate's 
decision, because all such applications go to Govern- 
ment in the first instance, but refuses the application 
because wholesale businesses are never carried on by 
joint partners. These are merely stray cases copied out 
of the newspaper reports, and it would doubtless be easy 
to find others more striking. For where such regula- 
tions exist as those excluding women as a rule from any 
trading privileges, save as dressmakers (including orna- 
mental work for ladies, sewing, &c), or as widows of 
masters ; those forbidding a man to keep two places for 



LIMITS OF EACH TRADE. 



315 



the sale of his goods, or to trade in articles not made by 
himself ; a natural desire to circumvent the law is almost 
certain to be found. Moreover, the arbitrary divisions 
of all trades, which have been fortunately remedied to 
some degree by the instruction of 1862, could not fail to 
cause constant collisions. I have mislaid a note I made 
of a case in which a poor woman having a permission to 
bake dumplings, baked a few cakes as well, and was 
fined for overstepping her privilege, and I need not 
quote such examples, though they are by no means 
exceptional, to prove the folly of these strict definitions. 
I will only observe that this is, perhaps, the most incon- 
venient part of the system to consumers. Every piece 
of work has to pass through the hands of so many 
traders that regularity and punctuality are impossible. 
But this comes within another division ; I am at pre- 
sent dealing with the vexations that attend the pro- 
ducer. One writer points out the advantage given to 
manufactories over tradesmen. The manufacturer, for 
instance, merely advances so much money, and is 
allowed to turn out anything complete. If he opens a 
carriage manufactory he may produce carriages without 
doing anything towards them himself ; but a carriage 
maker, who has had to learn his trade, pass examina- 
tions, &c, must have the help of six other masters, a 
locksmith, a blacksmith, a saddler, a glazier, a painter, 
and a bucklemaker, before he can make a carriage com- 
plete. And if he dispensed with the services of any one, 
the guild would instantly lodge a complaint against him. 
" In Nuremberg," says the same writer, " joiners are 
divided into five distinct classes, and if the traders in 



316 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



Nuremberg were like those in Munich, there would be 
constant complaints about trespass. But they are too 
clever and industrious in Nuremberg to waste time and 
money in complaining of others ; they find it is more 
profitable to do their work well than to have it pro- 
tected from encroachment. In Munich, on the other 
hand, there are shoals of masters who can't do their 
own work, but are always ready to keep others from 
doing it." The old story of the dog in the manger ! 

I come now to the results of this system on the trade 
of Bavaria in general, and its effect on the consumer. 
The statistics issued sufficiently show that trade has 
been crippled by these restrictions, and in twelve years 
the number of persons engaged in trade went down 
nine per cent. The best workmen emigrated by thou- 
sands ; in Paris alone, says one writer, there are 60,000 
German handicraftsmen. To compare the state of 
Bavaria on the right bank of the Rhine with the 
provinces on the left bank which have had freedom of 
trade since 1791, tells the same tale. No answer to the 
figures can be made by the defenders of the monopoly, 
and it is not worth my while to detail the arguments 
they proffer, But I must dwell a little longer on the 
effects produced on individuals, especially as grievances 
are more felt as they become individual, and are more 
liable to be redressed by individual combination. One 
cannot but feel interested in any prospect of reform 
when one has felt the inconveniences of the existing 
system, and though the opponents of reform threaten us 
with fearful consequences in the event of change, we 
know that a change for the worse is almost impossible. 



MINOR DETAILS. 



317 



I have spoken of the annoyance of having to employ a 
separate workman for every separate branch, and I will 
give some details on the subject. If you have a set of 
double windows made, you cannot give an order to a 
tradesman to make them for you ; you must have a car- 
penter to make the frames, a glazier to take them away 
and put in the glass, a smith to fit them in and put the 
hooks and eyes in their right places. You can't have 
your hair cut and be shaved in the same shop ; the one 
must be done by a hairdresser, the other by a barber, 
and the two trades are never carried on in common. 
There is a story of a man who wanted a wheelbarrow, 
and who ordered it of a carpenter. The wheelbarrow 
came home, but without the wheel ; and the man had to 
carry it to a wheelwright. But the wheelwright, after 
putting in the wheel, could not put the iron on it, and 
the man had to carry it to a blacksmith. When the 
iron was on, the wheelbarrow still wanted painting, and 
the man had to take it to a painter. The same process 
was once gone through by an Englishman who wanted 
a bucket. The man who made the staves could not 
make the hoops; the man who made the hoops could 
not make the handle ; the man who made the handle 
could not paint the bucket, so that an independent 
functionary had to be sought out for each of these 
offices. Such a chain of events was surely never seen 
since the time of the old woman with her refractory pig. 
The same Englishman had an adventure with a barber 
which deserves to be quoted. He was in the habit of 
being shaved by an apprentice of a barber in his neigh- 
bourhood. One morning the apprentice informed him 



318 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



that another would have to shave him in future, as he 
was going to change masters. The Englishman, accus- 
tomed to be always shaved by this apprentice, objected 
to changing, but he was told that the law forbade any 
apprentice to take any customer away from his former 
master, and that to prevent a customer being taken 
away, a month's time was interposed, during which the 
apprentice must have no dealings with the customer. I 
need hardly record the Englishman's indignation, his 
remarks that the law had no monopoly of shaving him, 
and his determination to break or evade the obnoxious 
clause. Suffice it that the apprentice continued to shave 
him, was informed against by his old master, and pun- 
ished ; and that the Englishman was told that he might 
be shaved by any one he liked except the one he wanted. 

The relations between fathers and sons are very 
strongly affected by the Bavarian laws of trade. In 
most places the son follows the same trade as his father, 
assists his father during his life, and succeeds him at his 
death. If the father is old and infirm, he leaves the 
business in the hands of his son, and the son has a 
natural inducement to improve the business, as he will 
shortly inherit it. But in Munich the father cannot 
resign his concession to his son, and if the son carries 
on the trade with greater activity than before, he has no 
guarantee that he will profit by it. There the singular 
phenomenon is presented of a son following a different 
trade from his father. I was greatly suprised to meet 
with a father carrying on a grocer's business while his son 
was working as a shoemaker. The idea struck me as 
thoroughly incongruous. In all working trades one 



WANT OF INHERITANCE. 



319 



supposes that a man brings up his sons in his own pro- 
fession, that they may have the advantage of his expe- 
rience, of his name, and of his establishment. Even in 
the higher professions it is a common sight to see the 
sons following their father's steps, though the higher 
professions have not often the hereditary advantages of 
the lower. But in trade the value of inheritance is 
obvious ; it includes the start in life, and often a main- 
tenance for life. The successor receives the old custo- 
mers as if they were entailed upon him, and without 
making any decided effort himself has all the fruit of 
the continued effort of his predecessor. But this does 
not hold good if he changes his trade. No one employs 
a shoemaker because he has dealt for years with his 
father in grocery, nor is the reputation of a tradesman 
available beyond his sphere of action. One must there- 
fore censure the law of concessions which does not 
allow a father to ensure his business to his son, as 
depriving tradesmen of the best incitement to activity. 
At the same time there is an exaggeration of inherit- 
ance in another branch of trade which causes the chief 
difficulty in settling the question. The real rights, as 
they are called, which are hereditary, and are valued as 
real property, are the great obstacles to the introduction 
of freedom of trade. If these real rights are to be 
bought up before trade can be liberated, we must wait a 
great many years, for there are more than seventy thou- 
sand such rights in Bavaria, and their value is some- 
times reckoned as high as forty million florins. And if 
they are not bought up, the owners of them would con- 
sider themselves robbed. Having been accepted as real 



320 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



property, loans have been contracted upon the rights, 
widows and orphans subsist upon them, and it is urged 
that any violation of the principle would be iniquitous 
to creditors and pensioners. I am not myself convinced 
that there would be any injustice in leaving the real 
rights to find their own level. The owners of them 
have evidently an advantage over all new competitors, 
the advantage of an established position, a name, and a 
custom. Moreover, time presses, freedom is loudly de- 
manded, and no means of satisfying the real rights is 
discoverable. But without a fuller knowledge of the 
cause in question than I am able to command, it would 
be useless to argue it. 

A word on the debate which preceded the issue of the 
instruction of 1862, and another on the changes intro- 
duced by the instruction, and my task is completed. 
The proposal to introduce freedom of trade was made 
by the representatives of Nuremberg, the most import- 
ant place of business in Bavaria, and was met by instant 
protests from the more backward districts, headed by 
the trade authorities of Munich. It is a notable fact 
that the towns where business was conducted on a large 
scale abstained from protests against the change, or 
signed petitions in favour of it ; while those which were 
notorious for their stagnation and incompetence were 
the most active opponents of it. An ultramontane 
paper in Munich moved heaven and earth to avert free- 
dom; another paper called the change a menacing 
stroke, and praised the measures taken by the trade 
council to defeat it. The members for the Rhine Pro- 
vinces where freedom existed, voted for its introduction 



€C TAKE UP MY HOPE, AND PROPHESY [" 321 

throughout Bavaria; the members for those districts 
where it had never existed, voted against it. All the 
clerical members, twelve in number, voted against free- 
dom ; and the landowners and farmers with the clergy 
composed the majority of the opponents. Brewers, 
tavernkeepers, tradesmen, landowners, and priests, spoke 
against the change as decided antagonists ; but the half 
opponents carried the day. One speaker, a chapel 
singer and keeper of a cafe in Altotting, the Loretto of 
Bavaria, prophesied the most fatal consequences to his 
native land if free trade were allowed, following the ex- 
ample of kindred speakers in other countries, and re- 
membering that excellent maxim, " If you can't argue, 
prophesy ! 93 Another clerical speaker announced that 
in the morning he had passed by the pillar erected to 
the Virgin in the old market-place of Munich, to com- 
memorate the victory of true religion in the person of 
Elector Maximilian, and to implore the Virgin's protec- 
tion against the plague, and seeing thousands praying 
before it, he could not but utter a hope that the Virgin 
might ward off this new and terrible plague, liberty of 
trade. Prayer and prophecy are not entirely unknown 
in English debates, although they are not carried to 
such lengths as this. To be sure, in the House of 
Commons shrines are not represented by their singers, 
nor is the priestly element introduced without some lay 
coating, however slight. 

By the new instruction, which was issued in accord- 
ance with the vote of the Chambers in this debate, 
some important reforms were effected. A sort of com- 
petitive examination was substituted for seniority in 

p 2 



322 



SOCIAL LITE IN MUNICH. 



deciding applications, personal capacity being made the 
sole test, and no regard being paid to the claims of the 
existing members of any trade for protection and main- 
tenance. Women were allowed to carry on trades; 
widows allowed to employ head men instead of trade 
managers; one man might exercise several trades at 
once, and not only were many others united, but the 
police were enjoined to facilitate every further junction. 
Instead of there being six kind of smiths, nailsmiths, 
locksmiths, knifesmiths, swordscourers, windlass makers, 
and blacksmiths, one kind includes them all. For- 
merly, no one man could make a fur coat ; the tailor 
had to make the coat, and the furrier add the fur: 
now the same may do both. I cannot forget the rap- 
ture of a jeweller with whom I dealt, and who till 
the new law had only been allowed to work in gold 
and jewels, when he was able to show a silver teapot 
without fear of being denounced by all the silversmiths 
in Munich. On all sides one sees the effect of the 
relaxation. Competition and energy are coming into 
play ; new shops are being opened and old ones beau- 
tified in all quarters of the town, and the progress 
that has been effected within four or five months is 
a hopeful sign for the future of this city. But much 
remains to be done. Work must advance very rapidly, 
and business habits must be taught by competition. 
The duties on imports must be lowered, and the 
custom-house reformed from its foundation. I trust 
that the somewhat tardy wisdom which has made 
the changes already mentioned may learn its other 
duties more quickly, and that Munich may not always 
occupy the rearguard of Europe. 



CHAPTER XX. 



LAWS Otf MARRIAGE. 

Among the attributes of a perfect wife with which Mr, 
Tennyson has invested his Isabel, we read, 

' The laws of marriage character' d in gold 
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart." 

Fully appreciating the poet's admirable picture, and 
intending no thought of irreverence, may I venture to 
express a hope that these marriage laws were not those 
of Bavaria ? 

That the Bavarian marriage laws do harm to morality 
is generally admitted, but it is supposed that the harm 
done to morality by a strict regulation of marriage is 
less important than the burden of pauperism that would 
otherwise fall on society. It is purely on grounds of 
political economy that marriage is regulated, and the 
laws of marriage are so closely connected with the laws 
of trade that the one chapter leads on to the other. So 
far as I can gather, it is incorrect to say that marriage 
is actually forbidden by any law, as the somewhat hasty 
statements of the antagonists of the present system 



324 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



would lead one to suppose. But tlie prohibition is 
none the less effectual for the indecision of the law, 
and for the latitude given to those who superintend 
the execution. The mode of operation is the following. 
In Bavaria the old system of communities exists in its 
full force. Each community is bound to support any 
of its members who are deprived of the power of sup- 
porting themselves, and of course it follows from this 
that each community is very careful not to admit too 
many to its privileges, and still more careful to see 
that every one admitted is duly qualified to keep him- 
self off the parish. It is this consideration that operates 
so effectually in limiting the number of tradesmen, lest 
too much competition should ruin any of them, and 
they should fall on the community. And of course it 
applies more strongly to marriages and the creation of 
families. 

Such is the principle of the old system, and the 
details dovetail very neatly into each other. Every one 
who would be a member of a community must obtain 
its permission to establish himself in it, and there are 
four conditions of establishment, for all who are not 
government functionaries. You must either possess 
landed property, or a real right, or a concession, or 
any other permanent and assured means of subsistence. 
If you can prove the possession of any of these you can 
get permission to establish yourself; but simple as the 
conditions may seem, it is not always so easy to comply 
with them. The first two require capital, and such 
capital as is inherited, for it is rare that in countries 
where marriage is left free, the rising man waits for a 



PAPER WALLS. 



325 



wife till lie has purchased a business or an estate. The 
last chapter has shown the difficulties attending on con- 
cessions, and the fourth condition leaves the applicant 
entirely in the power of the community. What means 
of subsistence are permanent and assured? Trade? 
Your customers may leave you for a competitor. Your 
own work? But your working powers may fail you. 
An allowance from your father? And if your father 
fails, what becomes of your allowance ? It is evident 
that any curmudgeon of a community may raise ob- 
jections to the certainty of any income, as all human 
things are subject to uncertainty, and the reluctance of 
communities to increase their numbers is thus provided 
with double weapons. The instinct of human nature 
leads one to look for evasions of the law, as soon as the 
stringency of its provisions is ascertained. Unfortunately 
no evasion exists ; every possibility of one has been fore- 
seen. Each stranger taking up his quarters in any 
place has to lodge his passport with the police, and take 
out a permission to reside, and the owner of the house 
in which he lives must vouch for the accuracy of his state- 
ments. Germans are shut up in such paper walls that 
something presents itself at every turn. Gretna Green 
is quite out of the question, because by an article of the 
Police Code, every man who marries abroad without 
permission of the mother country is liable to a fine of a 
hundred florins, or thirty days' imprisonment. In the 
Palatinate there is perfect freedom in the matter of 
marriage and establishment, but only for the natives of 
the place. Immigrants from the other provinces of 
Bavaria are treated according to their own laws, and 



326 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



many poor couples who have been denied the right of 
marrying at home have spent their last savings in 
journeying across the Rhine, hoping in vain to find 
liberty there. 

All evasion is thus provided against, and the regula- 
tions of marriage are quite effectual. The State has 
deputed to each community the right of protecting its 
own interests, and the communities have not shrunk 
from their duty. It remains to be seen if the results 
are as effectual as the workings, if the harm done to 
morality is outweighed by the good done to society ; if, 
in short, the public is really benefited at the expense 
of the domestic happiness of the greater number. But 
first a word upon the abstract question. I do not 
attempt to discuss the right of a State to put impedi- 
ments in the way of marriage ; more reading and more 
thought than I can command would be necessary to 
influence the decision. Yet I cannot but think that if 
the measures taken by the Bavarian Government are 
found to have an evil effect, both on morality and 
economy, measures adopted, as they are, with the 
greatest care, and carried out with the greatest work- 
ing efficiency, the general question must, to some ex- 
tent, be effected by their failure. It would of course be 
of no use to forbid marriage if it could be contracted 
without permission; the blockade must be effectual. 
The Bavarian government do everything in their power 
to enforce the rule; the minute surveillance of the 
police in every town is such that a secret marriage 
could not by any possibility be made; unmarried 
couples may not live together. I do not know what 



MILL ON LIBERTY. 



327 



more could be done to make the marriage law binding, 
except perhaps one thing, to refuse the legitimation 
of children born out of wedlock, and I question if this 
would not increase the misery of natural children in- 
stead of deterring their parents from cohabitation. 
Nor would one willingly see any further measures 
adopted, when one knows the misery caused by the 
present regulations. Still it may be said that illegi- 
timate births would be much lessened by the removal 
of the subsequent remedy, and in some degree I must 
admit the force of the argument. And yet it is evident 
from the official statistics of births and marriages that 
the measure would by no means put a stop to illegi- 
timate births, and that it would not seriously diminish 
their number. For in one year there were seventeen 
hundred and two illegitimate births (not counting 
seventy- six still born) in Munich, and only four hundred 
and seven legitimated by subsequent marriage. I must, 
therefore, put in these facts as an appeal against the 
judgment of one of the greatest living authorities, who 
has ventured to approve of the system of restriction. 
"The law, which in some countries," says John Stuart 
Mill in his book on Liberty,* forbids those to marry 
who cannot maintain a family, does not exceed the 
powers of government, and although such a law may 
have its inconveniences, it cannot be said to be a viola- 
tion of liberty." 

I presume Mr. Mill reasons that those who cannot 
support a family have no right to marry, that liberty 

* I translate the passage from a French, work, in which it is quoted, 
not having the original at hand. 



328 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



only extends to such things as are of right, and that 
the State is qualified to interfere to procure the ob- 
servance of rights. It is perfectly true that those who 
cannot maintain a family have not the right to marry, 
and that reasoning men, under such circumstances, 
would consider themselves forbidden by a higher law 
than that imposed by any State. No man can wish 
to entail poverty and misery upon a wife and children, 
and without some prospect, or some hope, however 
vague, one can scarcely conceive that any one would 
be so reckless as to marry. Men are, no doubt, given 
to be extravagant in hope, to expect a competence with- 
out having to labour for it. But experience gradually 
cures this evil, and the man who looks forward to con- 
quering the world at twenty is apt to be ultra-practical 
at thirty. In many cases, too, people are prompted to 
violent exertions by the pressure of want, and an idle 
man is turned into a willing worker. These are the 
operations of the laws of Nature, of whose laws it is 
scarcely possible for any one to be ignorant. She warns 
beforehand of the consequences, and holds out every 
inducement to disarm them. Her punishments are 
effectual, but they are not without their remedy; her 
sentences may often be diminished by good conduct, 
and are sure to be aggravated by bad. She holds out 
comfort and contentment as the reward of diligence 
and thrift; she imposes care and want upon idleness, 
but lets repentance help to redeem the penalty. Self- 
reliance and forethought are inculcated by all her 
teaching. But when the State interferes, the law of 
nature is sure to be disregarded. Subjects who are 



THE STATE V. NATURE. 



329 



accustomed to have their affairs managed for them by- 
superior authority are deprived of all power of self- 
reliance, and are as helpless as children whenever the 
State fails them. Moreover, the intervention of the 
government cannot be half as effectual as the prohibi- 
tions imposed by nature, because the government can 
only put obstacles in the way and inflict punishment 
if these are disregarded. The State cannot say to a 
man as Nature says to him, " If you do this you shall 
starve the most she can say is, " I will punish you if 
you do not respect my injunctions." Naturally, too, 
the punishment that the State can inflict for such dis- 
regard of her laws is very limited, because imprudence 
is not a crime, and the higher penalties must be re- 
served for crimes. If you punish an imprudent mar- 
riage as you punish seduction or robbery, do you not 
imply that there is as little guilt in seduction or rob- 
bery as there is in making an imprudent marriage? 
And yet the laws of Nature leave crime almost un- 
punished while they enforce prudence by threats of the 
most terrible meaning. 

What I would argue is, that the interference of the 
State in these things is ineffectual, both as it fails in its 
own workings, and impedes the workings of nature's 
law. The man left to himself, sees that if he marries 
without means, he reduces himself and his wife to po- 
verty, and that if he has a large family without a cor- 
responding income, he entails poverty on his children. 
But when the State forbids him to marry, and have 
children, a certain term of punishment is substituted 
for poverty in case he is able to elude the vigilance of 



330 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



the State. With this prospect before him, there are 
two very simple ways of eluding the Government ; he 
can either get married elsewhere, and accept thirty 
days imprisonment, or he can get children without 
going through any form of marriage. In either case 
the weight is thrown on the State. The State is re- 
garded as the opponent of marriage, and the disgrace of 
illegitimacy is transferred to the laws which make it 
necessary. Are not these the necessary results of State 
interference ? 

The results in Bavaria are far worse than anything I 
have stated in discussing the general question, and if I 
give an account of them, I believe it will be of more 
effect than any argument upon the principle. Mr. Mill 
admits that " such a law may have its inconveniences ; w 
and it is a question if the inconveniences are not inse- 
parable from it. Be it understood that in describing 
the Bavarian system, I do not imply that a better sys- 
tem might not be adopted ; that the excess of bureau- 
cracy inherent in the German nature might not be 
avoided in other countries; that obstacles might not 
be put in the way of imprudent marriages, without re- 
ducing the poor to a worse state of poverty than even 
imprudent marriages would reduce them. I am only 
showing the circumstances in which one nation has 
placed itself by endeavouring to forbid marriage, and I 
leave more skilful legislators to discover means less open 
to reproach. In the chapter on Trade Laws, I quoted 
from a German writer that an application for a conces- 
sion was generally accompanied by a demand for the 
right of establishment. Such a demand is referred to 



LONG ENGAGEMENTS. 331 

the common council, and the trustees for the poor, to 
decide if the applicant's means are sufficient. In some 
cases a concession is granted without the right of mar- 
riage ; but the difficulty of obtaining concessions is so 
great, that a man who has not capital to marry, has 
very little chance of being allowed to practise his trade. 
But the marriage requirements do not press so much on 
these classes as on the poorer people. Servants, and all 
who depend on personal employment, are perhaps the 
greatest sufferers. Their applications are certain to be 
rejected, on the ground that their subsistence is not 
assured. I have known cases in which servants have 
asked their masters to make an agreement to keep them 
for ever, because such an agreement would guarantee 
the certainty of their means of subsistence. And yet 
it is scarcely to be expected that any master would sign 
such a document, if there was a chance of his being 
kept to his word. If you inquire of the servants in 
Munich, you will find that almost every one is engaged^ 
and almost every female servant above a certain age has 
one or two children. One cook that I had was engaged 
eighteen years, and had two children out at nurse. 
Another was engaged seven years, in the middle of 
which her lover left her, and married another who had 
more money, returning to her on the death of his first 
wife. I have heard of a case of two poor people having 
to wait fifteen years for permission to marry, and spend- 
ing 200 florins on applications. One of the writers on 
the subject gives the following instance. An operative 
earning twelve shillings a week, was engaged to a girl 
earning seven, and owner of a house valued at <£120, 



332 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



and a cow. They applied for permission to marry, and 
were refused; " means of subsistence not assured." 
Time went on, they had two children, and still their 
application was refused on the same ground. The 
owner of the manufactory took up their cause, and 
pleaded it himself with the official, saying, that this 
refusal was not what was intended by the Government. 
The official replied curtly, (t What does that matter to 
us; the Government may have its own ideas on the 
subject, but we have ours, and J in particular am of 
opinion that such marriages are neither right nor use- 
fill." The author from whom I quote this, adds, 
" While I am writing, my servant girl, aged fifteen 
years, comes in dressed for a feast-day, and says that 
her father and mother are to be married to-day, and she 
must henceforth be called by her father's name. Twelve 
times her father's application for license to marry was 
rejected, and each time he had to pay fees and ex- 
penses, lawyer's bills," &c. &c. 

This is the way the system works. Unless a man can 
show that there is no human likelihood of his coming 
on the parish, he is deprived of the most powerful in- 
ducement to exertion, and all his savings are gradually 
absorbed by the expense of the applications he must 
make, by the costly organization of a bureaucratic 
authority. Thus, with a view to encourage prudence, an 
actual waste of money is effected, and instead of bid- 
ding poor people accumulate their savings, and marry 
upon them, you make the savings go to maintain an 
anti-matrimonial jurisdiction. Nor is this the only 
breach of economy. The expense of two people living 



THE LEGAL REMEDY. 



333 



apart j and keeping their illegitimate children out at 
nurse, is far greater than it would be for a family to live 
together. It has often been maintained that what is 
enough for two is enough for three ; it is certain that a 
small increase is sufficient to support an additional person, 
and that nothing is more expensive than separate mainte- 
nance. The most expensive form of life is therefore forced 
upon people who are considered too poor to carry on the 
most frugal. I was very much touched by hearing the his- 
tory of a poor artist in Munich, one of those thoroughly 
artistic temperaments one reads of, absorbed in his own 
world, and unable to obey the demands of the practical 
world around him. He was a widower, and wished to 
marry the maidservant in his house. Of course he 
could not get permission, and as he had a child by her, 
she was removed from his house, and made to take ser- 
vice elsewhere. The child was put out to nurse, the 
father had to pay a certain sum towards the support of 
the child and the mother, while deprived of the help of his 
servant, and not allowed the help of a wife. It may easily 
be supposed how unfitted an artist of this class would be 
to do all the duties of his house, how much more it 
cost him to make an allowance to the mother of his 
child, without any equivalent, than it would have cost 
for the family to live together ; and how little chance 
there would be for any of them bettering themselves by 
their work, as there would have been if they had lived 
together. This is not nature's penalty for imprudence ; 
this is only the misery the State can inflict on those 
who are too weak to oppose it. 



334 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



It is not private economy alone that suffers in Ba- 
varia ; the public funds are also heavily taxed by the 
results of the marriage law. The communities profess 
to restrain marriage out of regard for their own purses ; 
they forbid the rearing of families, lest the children 
should come on the parish. But by this short-sighted 
policy they cause the parishes to be burdened with ille- 
gitimate children, who have no responsible parents to 
support them, and who are therefore sure to be an ex- 
pense to the community. Honest people, who have 
married, and have got a family too large for their means, 
feel the promptings of honour, and bear up to the last 
moment, sooner than give up their children. But no 
one has the same sense of duty with regard to illegiti- 
mate children, who do not bear his name, and whose 
legal claim on him is limited. And thus the commu- 
nities procure a certainty of charge by wishing to avoid 
a chance of it. The same short-sightedness is found in 
the restrictions imposed on military marriages. No 
soldier is allowed to marry before thirty, and their 
children are pensioned up to the age of eighteen. The 
result of this is, that when the father dies he is almost 
sure to leave children younger than eighteen, who have 
to be supported at the public expense. It is, I believe 
established, that young marriages are not so prolific as 
those marriages contracted above the age of thirty; 
and as all marriage laws are devised with a view to 
limiting the number of births, it is clear that these laws 
defeat their object. Certainly, if the father married 
younger, there would be more chance of his children 



WHAT FIGURES SHOW. 



335 



having attained the age of eighteen before he died. 
As it is, tribes of young children are saddled upon the 
public purse. 

The statistical tables of kingdoms in which marriage 
is restricted, and especially the tables of Bavaria, hold 
out warnings against the continuance of the system. 
To the triumphant question of a Conservative writer, 
" What would become of towns if every body in them 
was allowed to marry ?" one may oppose a dismal pic- 
ture of the present state of towns in which every one is 
not allowed to marry. It was found in Baden that the 
old families rapidly disappeared in towns where the 
right of establishing and marrying was not left free, 
and in many such towns it was quite impossible to make 
up the number of recruits for the army, as the popula- 
tion had so much diminished, that all the young men in 
the place did not suffice. Illegitimate births seem to 
keep pace in an exactly corresponding ratio to the regu- 
lations on marriage. In Lower Bavaria illegitimate 
births are one in four ; in the Palatinate, where free- 
dom from vexatious laws produces a less proportion of 
crime, more contentment, and far greater prosperity, 
they are one in nine ; and in Saxony and Prussia one 
in thirteen. In Munich, in one year, there were 1,762 
legitimate, and 1,702 illegitimate births ; nor is it rare 
for the illegitimate births in one month to exceed the 
legitimate. But the worst side disclosed by these sta- 
tistics is the proportion of deaths. In the whole of 
Bavaria more die under fourteen than over ; and the 
number that die before attaining one year is four times 
as great as the number which comes next to it, grown 



336 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



up people, who die between sixty and seventy. That is, 
in one year more than 69,000 children died, and only 
62,000 persons over fourteen. Of these children 53,000 
were under one year, whereas the greatest number of 
deaths above fourteen were 13,000, of people between 
sixty and seventy. If these figures do not open one's 
eyes to the results of the system pursued in Bavaria, I 
do not know what will. And yet without due commen- 
tary the figures do not tell half the tale. It would 
seem strange that while the illegitimate births in Mu- 
nich so nearly approach the legitimate, the deaths of 
people over fourteen exceed the deaths under fourteen, 
while in many country places the children die faster 
than they are born. The secret of this is, that most of 
the illegitimate children are put out to nurse in country 
places, and that people from the country come up to 
Munich, that their shame may not be public at home. 
In all the villages round the chief cities of Bavaria, 
children are commited to the care of licensed nurses ; 
only a small sum is paid for their maintenance, and 
they are starved out of the world. Thus, in the towns 
of Nuremberg and Wurzburg, the deaths above four- 
teen exceed. But in the districts of Nuremberg and 
Wurzburg, the deaths under fourteen are by far the 
most numerous. 

I need scarcely enlarge on the moral results after 
producing these figures. It is evident that small regard 
is paid to the life that God has implanted in all His 
creatures, be they born in wedlock or not; and what 
regard can be paid to the sanctity of family relations, 
of the marriage tie, of the chain of duties and affections 



THE RESULTS. 



337 



that binds parents and children together, when every 
single one of them is thus profaned ? There can be no 
respect of marriage if it is to be only a civil observance, 
contracted by those whom the community recognises as 
respectable ; nor can a family grow up in one after years 
of separation and estrangement, when the children have 
been stealthily begotten, and have been born in shame. 
On these grounds alone a revision of the law is needed ; 
anckif, as some argue, the nation is not fitted to walk 
by itself, and cannot be trusted to provide for its own 
wants, the sooner it is freed from these leading-strings 
the more chance of its learning. 



Q 



CHAPTER XXI. 



LAWS OF POLICE. 

There is a mysterious power in Munich, almost answer- 
ing to the old secret tribunals of the Vehm, or the ter- 
rible messengers of state-punishments in Venice, to 
judge by the fear it inspires. It takes cognisance of 
every stranger and sojourner; its functions range from 
the highest departments to the lowest; it is never 
spoken of but in whispers, and while no definite know- 
ledge of its details seems to exist, its measures are 
severely, though secretly denounced, by foreign re- 
sidents. Till about a year ago there was no means 
of ascertaining the crimes it was allowed to visit and 
the penalties it was in the habit of inflicting. The 
extent and accuracy of its information, whether gathered 
from known or unknown sources, the prying into do- 
mestic life with which it has been charged, have rendered 
it an object of wonder to the inhabitants of Munich; 
and of hatred to the sons of freer countries. It is dif- 
ficult to converse with an old resident on the ways of 
Munich without hearing fearful denunciations of the 
police authorities, backed by stories that seem marvel- 
lous, though they only want substantiation, not founda- 
tion in fact. 



SKETCH INESS OF THIS CHAPTER. 



339 



I have not examined the judicial organisation of 
Bavaria. In the absence of plentiful and reliable ma- 
terials, I have been content to neglect the duties of a 
philosophic inquirer, especially as I found very great 
difficulties in the way. It has not been my object to 
go to the root of these matters, and with the existing 
obstacles to inquiry, no one who was not willing to 
break the ice and investigate every nook and cranny, 
could arrive at any results. Nor do I imagine that the 
results would repay him for his trouble. The mysteries 
of Munich cannot be so deep or exciting as those of the 
great capitals which have afforded fields for so much 
romance ; and though, perhaps, the under current may 
be more rapid and turbid than the placid surface, the 
diver might bring up nothing worthy of public ex- 
amination. Would it interest the English public to 
hear that in very truth the Munich police employed 
a gentleman* s maid-servant to ascertain the nature of 
her master's relations with his house-keeper; or that 
a Frenchman was really separated from his travelling 
companion on grounds of public morality? Both 
stories may be true, as the police is legally empowered 
to provide against all moral offences. But if I were to 
tell all the tales that I have heard of the Munich police, 
and leave the natural inferences to be drawn from them, 
I should be conveying a very different idea from that 
which seems to be legitimate. There is no doubt a 
considerable amount of over-legislation in Munich, as 
there is throughout the Continent. Germans, especially^ 
seem unable to dispense with it ; and if they do not feel 
the inconvenience of their present system, the authori- 



340 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



ties are hardly called upon to alter it. Thus much is 
certain, that the smallness of crime and the orderliness 
of public life in Munich contrast very favourably with 
the state of English towns, while the boorishness of the 
population would lead one to form the very worst 
opinion of their capacity for discipline. 

The police system in Munich is based on the same 
principle as the laws of trade and of marriage. Every 
crime is provided for, and every inducement is put for- 
ward to make good citizens of the people. The police 
code, which was drawn up by the Chambers in 1861, 
and came in force 1st July, 1862, contains 231 articles, 
and out of a population of 140,000 twelve to fifteen 
hundred persons are punished every month. In one 
month I find the following number given : — 3 for 
breaking the Sunday; 319 for breaking the laws of 
the strangers' police; 1 for putting his things up to 
lottery without permission ; 40 for breaking the servants' 
laws ; 34 for giving too late notice of having engaged 
servants ; 15 for breaking the sanitary laws ; 7 for 
breaking the fire laws; 2 for breaking the raft laws; 
1 for stealing flowers from the cemetery ; 3 for damage 
to fields; 18 for cruelty to animals; 39 for breaking 
the fiacre and driving laws ; 66 for offences against the 
street police; 14 for not observing the police hour; 
37 for making Blue Monday and arbitrarily absenting 
themselves from their work ; 25 for defrauding the 
town dues; 1 for quackery; 17 for hawking; 43 for 
breaking the dog laws; 70 for dissoluteness, and 16 for 
favouring the same; 1 for usury; 261 for ill-treatment, 
injuries, and similar excesses; 17 for theft; 4 for em- 



PERMISSIONS TO LIVE. 



341 



bezzlement ; 2 for insulting the gendarmerie; 215 for 
idle vagabondage; and 34 for begging. In another 
month one person was punished for taking children to 
nurse without permission, six for taking part in lot- 
teries of other people's effects. It will be seen by this 
list that the chief numbers refer to offences which are 
left unpunished in other countries. Of the large num- 
bers. "261 for injuries, brutalities, and the like/' is 
the only clause likely to figure in a less governed 
country; and this one speaks badly for the state of 
public civilisation. But in all other respects the crimes 
are ridiculously light. Munich is, perhaps, the only 
place left where the strangers' police is enforced with 
such rigour. I believe permissions to reside are no 
longer necessary in Vienna; they had been much re- 
laxed in Venice, till the war of 1859 brought them in 
again. But the restrictions on trade and marriage 
make them still necessary in Munich, ridiculous as 
they may seem. So accustomed are dwellers in these 
German towns to police supervision that a German 
once declared life to be unsafe in America owing to the 
absence of a polizei, and an Englishman who had been 
long in Munich asked if the police in London allowed 
you to take a house where you liked, and to live as you 
felt disposed ? 

When seventy-four persons are punished in one month 
for offences against the laws relating to servants, one is 
tempted to inquire into the nature of such laws, and 
the effect they have on those subject to them. It is 
notorious throughout Germany that servants in Munich 
are bad, and yet the police take every precaution to 

q 2 



342 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



ensure their good behaviour. Every servant has to keep 
a book, stamped by the police, and containing certifi- 
cates of character, signed by each successive employer. 
On entering a person's service, a servant has to take her 
book to the police, with a paper from her new master, 
stating the date of her entry into his house, which date 
is written in her book, with the name and address of 
her master, and guaranteed by the official stamp. On 
the blank page opposite, her character is written by the 
employer when she leaves his service, so that each 
period of her life is accounted for, and bad conduct 
would seem impossible against so sure a penalty. In 
spite of all these precautions, the tribe of servants in 
Munich seems to deteriorate instead of improving, and 
the characters given in their books are by no means 
reliable. Like the naval certificate, according to which 
every officer conducts himself with diligence, sobriety, 
and attention, and is always obedient to command, the 
certificate that Munich servants have always been honest 
and diligent, may be capable of considerable stretching. 
And thus the same conclusion is forced on us by the 
police regulations, as St. Paul formed with regard to 
the J ewish law ; if there had been a law given which 
could have given life, verily righteousness should have 
been by the law. 

But while the police authorities are engaged in taking 
care of public morals, and in the higher works of the 
law, their actual province is neglected. The street 
police is inefficient in the extreme. It never seems to 
cross the minds of the people of Munich, that the great 
body of officers which they keep up should be employed 



QUIET STREETS. 



343 



in works of real utility, and while the gensdarmes are 
looking after morality, or seeing that no one takes a 
house without permission to reside, the streets are in a 
state of anarchy. A friend, who is far more familiar 
than I am with Munich life, but who perversely leaves 
me to write the book that he should have written, has 
mentioned many little facts of this nature in a letter to 
the Parthenon. He gives a strange picture of brewer's 
drays stopped exactly on a crossing, in order that the 
drayman may chat for half an hour with a friend, while 
all foot-passengers have to wade through the mud ; of 
houses being repaired, and no temporary foot-path made 
in front ; of shops being altered, and the whole pathway 
blocked up by a great wooden booth, in which the 
shopkeeper takes up his abode for the time; of the 
most unpleasant trades being practised in the open 
street, a coppersmith rivetting his cauldron, a tinman 
soldering the pipe of a house ; while sawing, chopping, 
ramming and pounding wood, goes on all day in front 
of every one's windows. With such noises, added to 
the detestable drums of the immense garrison, the quiet 
streets of Munich are almost worthy of the name in 
the ironical sense of London satirists. 

It may be a question how far the police are entitled 
to interfere in the matter of public morality. Some 
interference is obviously required. No thinking man 
can defend the existing state of London streets, and a 
comparison of Parisian morals and Parisian decency, 
with London morals and London decency, would suffice 
to prove the necessity of Government supervision. Un- 
fortunately, Englishmen are, more than any other 



344 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



nation, under the influence of phrases, and, sooner than 
allow a cant phrase to be employed against them with 
some show of truth, will submit to the greatest prac- 
tical annoyances. In London we have the extreme of 
lawlessness, and it is universally admitted that our 
system is wrong. But the other extreme is by no 
means perfect, although public decency is preserved, 
and no sign of vice transpires. Rome and Munich are 
about the only two cities in Europe whose prostitution 
seems unknown. In Rome it is positively forbidden by 
the government of a priesthood ; in Munich, I believe, 
it is licensed to the most limited extent, for strangers 
only. One result of such measures is, that nothing can 
be known about the dark side of the town. In London, 
vice is open to the most casual observer; any one 
may take his stand at the corners of streets and com- 
pute the numbers engaged in vicious pursuits ; the 
haunts of vice are public and notorious. In Paris, too, 
the workings of the system can be watched without 
much difficulty; and the police provide statistical in- 
formation which seems not altogether inaccessible. But 
in Rome and Munich no idea can be formed of the 
state of public morals. In no large city can one expect 
to find purity, and the accounts given of Rome below 
the surface are considered by many as an additional 
proof of the incapacity of the priestly government. In 
About' s " Question Romaine " — a book which, however 
venomous in its spirit, has been shown to understate 
the facts bearing on the temporal power — there is an 
allusion to the results of this compulsory virtue ; and 
a full statement of them was made by a Roman in a 



PUBLIC MORALITY. 



345 



pamphlet following the celebrated manifesto of " Le Pape 
et le Congres." If one may judge from what one hears, 
the same evils exist in Munich. The difficulties thrown 
in the way of marriage contribute to sap the virtue of 
poor women, and the men, not finding any outlet for 
their passions, are naturally on the search for adven- 
tures. 

" Munich," says Murray, " has the reputation of 
being a very dissolute capital." If the statistics of ille- 
gitimate births were to be trusted implicitly, such a 
reputation were certainly deserved. A stranger, how- 
ever, coming from London or Paris with the usual 
idyllic ideas about Germany, would be far from coming 
to such a conclusion. In the quiet of the streets, the 
absence of all show of temptation, he would read a con- 
firmation of that public virtue traditionally preserved 
from the times of Tacitus, and confirmed by Madame de 
Stael. Estimates of national character are almost always 
unsatisfactory, and in setting down whole nations as 
virtuous people forget that in every country the majority 
gives way to its instincts, and that a community with- 
out vice is a moral impossibility. Even in the time of 
the patriarchs the social evil was not unknown, although 
it had not arrived at such a pitch as to demand a polite 
inuendo to describe it. The words in which Heine 
analyses the ideal pictures of Madame de Stael are not 
inappropriate to characterise the real aspect of Ger- 
many, and the fancy views which are often formed of it. 
" Madame de Stael only sees one side of German life ; 
she praises the intellectual part, the idealism of Ger- 
many, in order to attack the realism that was then pre- 



346 



SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH. 



vailing in France. Her book resembles in this respect 
the Germania of Tacitus, who probably had the same 
object in view, to satirise his countrymen indirectly by 
apologising for Germany. Madame de Stael only saw 
across the Rhine what she wished to see; a nebulous 
land of spirits, where men without bodies and all -virtue 
walked on fields of snow, conversing only on meta- 
physics. Oh ! what delightful freshness in your woods, 
she would cry, what delicious scent of violets; how 
peacefully the canary birds sing in their little German 
nests ! You are a good and virtuous people, and you 
have no idea of the corruption that exists amongst us in 
France, in the Rue du Bac! She sees nothing but 
spiritualism around her; she praises our honesty, our 
probity, our morality, our admirable intellects, and our 
admirable hearts ; she has no idea of our houses of cor- 
rection, our sloughs of prostitution, our barracks, &c, 
&c." Such is the judgment of a German upon the 
morality of his native land, such the terms in which he 
rejects the exaggerated praise of a stranger. 

I have merely touched on this subject incidentally, 
because the surface of Munich life might mislead 
passing visitors. But I leave it for others to sum up 
the facts bearing on the case, and either to acquit the 
town of the charge made against it, or to pronounce it 
guilty. My own conclusion is, that while some cities 
are more guilty than others, none can be accounted as 
innocent, and it is better to grant the unfortunate ne- 
cessity for all large towns than to claim an exemption 
for some, at the risk of their faults being more severely 
scrutinised and more decidedly condemned. 



LONDON! 

LEWIS AND SON, PRINTERS, SWAN BUILDINGS, MOORGATE STREET. 



V 



